Two years ago, yes, for a zombie thread that was reawakened after 11 years.
There, this was posted —
I was wondering the same thing. Because of the incorrectly placed flags, I had approached the sheriff’s deputy. I imagined that for her, standing in court duty had to be boring as all hell.
Pulling guard duty can be interesting, or very boring. For court duty, guard duty has to be boring as all hell. If that were me I’d be worried about dozing off…
Cool, thanks for checking. Glad to know at least some of my memory is still in decent working order!
Only story I have is that I completely forgot about it until a week or so later, but they never said anything to me so I guess they had decided I wasn’t required.
As I live in Japan, I don’t have to worry about jury duty, but my sister said that was the cause of a hung jury once.
She felt that the prosecution had overcharged the defendant but couldn’t convince the others to agree with her point of view. They couldn’t convince her so after much deliberation, they gave up.
I sat on a grand jury once:
I’ve actually not received a jury summons since then – 2017. I’m quite overdue.
Reading through that post and I realize my views on sitting on the grand jury has changed a bit. It was interesting, but it was also incredibly boring. Being a juror for a criminal trial was much more interesting.
I got my summons and eventually was empaneled on an assault and illegal weapons possession case.
A man was being evicted by his landlord and a local sheriff’s deputy went to his home to serve the eviction notice. For whatever reason the deputy, after banging on the door for a while, entered the house only to find himself facing a guy standing in the hallway pointing a gun at him. He bolted back out the door and a standoff ensued, with the guy in the house eventually surrendering.
When the cops searched the house they found a homemade silencer. Thus the weapons charge.
The deputy and the guy in the house agreed on the sequence of events and basic facts of the story. However, the guy, who was maybe 60, said he was very hard of hearing and was taking a nap and didn’t hear the knocking on the door. He was woken by the door opening – it was mobile home and the door opening literally made the house jiggle a bit – and thought it was a home invasion so grabbed his piece and, well, it turned out it wasn’t a home invasion. He claimed it was all a big misunderstanding. The deputy even testified that when he opened the door the house shook a bit. During the trial the defendant had and used one of those listening devices that sat on the table and looked like a tiny satellite dish used to pick up the voices in the courtroom.
He testified in his own defense. When he went up to the witness stand he forgot his listening device and the judge, who was very soft-spoken, asked him if he needed the device before continuing and the guy, having heard the judge, affirmed that he did.
We convicted him and that 10 second exchange was what sealed his fate. Had it not been for that we likely would have acquitted him on the assault charge. Both sides agreed with each other on what happened and frankly the guy’s reasoning made a lot of sense – definitely a lot of “reasonable doubt” there. Especially strong after the deputy testified that the house shook when he opened the door. There was no doubt or disagreement that the defendant had pointed a gun at a cop. But it was in his own home and he did not leave the house to confront anyone or make any verbal threats to anyone (this was significant, IIRC). Our instructions were that guilt was tied to intent. In order to find him guilty on the assault charge we had to agree with the prosecutor that he intended to threaten the cop specifically because he was a cop. (Or something like that. It’s been like 12 or 13 years now so my details may be off a bit.) On the face of it we didn’t feel like there was deliberate intent there. It really did seem like a misunderstanding.
However, the fact that he heard the judge, who’s speaking voice was barely above that of a whisper, ask him a question when he wasn’t wearing his little amplifier led us to believe he was faking his story. If he heard the judge, why didn’t he hear the deputy banging on his door? We theorized that the deputy could’ve been lying about knocking and then banging on the door but immediately dismissed that idea. So the only remaining conclusion was that the defendant was lying about not hearing the knocks and bangs on the door. If he was lying about that, then he knew it was a cop at the door, and thus he intended to threaten him rather than was simply reacting to an assumed home invasion. Why, I have no idea. He didn’t seem like the type of guy who would be dumb enough to pull a gun on a cop but it takes all kinds, I guess.
I just remembered this: When we were deliberating one of the clerks brought us some of the physical evidence so that we could get a closer look at it. One of these items was the pistol silencer made out a chunk of iron pipe. That the cops had stored in a basic brown paper lunch sack. A brown paper lunch sack that was unmarked in any way. When we were leaving the courthouse after delivering our verdict the clerk, thinking it was an actual lunch one of us had brought in, tried to get us to take it. Thankfully everyone was honest and told her, actually someone had to show her, what was in the bag.
The silencer was clearly homemade and he didn’t have any kind of license for it. His guilt on that one was not in question.
My wife just avoided being empaneled on a jury in a very grisly capital murder case. She was immensely relived that she was not chosen.
How long do the courts expect prospective jurors to travel to court? Depending on the jurisdiction, the court might be an hour or more drive from your home.
You havent been around many hearing impaired people then. Someone who is hearing impaired can usually understand someone if they talk directly to them, so they can read the lips and face expression. My Ex- who was a volunteer to interpret for the hearing impaired was good at ASL, but was also hearing impaired herself, but not “deaf”. She could best understand someone if you spoke directly to her,
Great question. The County Courthouse is less than four miles from my house and I can be there in ten minutes.
If I get summoned to Federal Court it’s almost 100 miles away (Santa Barbara to downtown Los Angeles). If there is no traffic it’s one hour and 45 minutes but can be three hours or more on a bad day. The train is like 2.5 hours. They apparently give you a hotel voucher. A friend of mine was on call every Wednesday for a year for some sort of Mexican Mafia racketeering thing.
Fuck. That. I got called for that once and thankfully I had served jury duty locally within the previous year so I was able to put my summons number on the form and send it back. The second time I got a Federal notice I threw it in the trash.
I heard that people in Santa Maria can get called for Los Angeles Federal. That’s a five hour train ride or a three to over six hour drive.
I’ve done trials in federal courts in Seattle and Tacoma where they put up jurors in hotels because they came from so far away. (Canadian border for Seattle. Oregon border for Tacoma). For county court, it’s never terribly far, but could certainly be an hour or more drive. (and if you don’t have a car and need public transportation, it’s a real problem)
For the Federal jury I was called for (but did not end up on) a guy was from Safford. It’s about 2 hours, and he got chosen.
I wonder if he was expected to drive two hours to and from court each day. Because that’s a lot to ask.
There was a hotel that had a jury duty rate; we got told about it during the welcome orientation.
FTR, jury duty seems to be much more rare in Canada than in the US. The closest I’ve come is once getting a form in the mail – I think at least ten years ago – to fill out regarding my potential eligibility. I think I qualified. One of the questions, paraphrased, was “are you insane?” 
(The actual question was something like “have you ever been treated for mental illness?”). But I’ve never been summoned for jury duty nor do I know anyone who has.
Well, I (a Canadian) have been called. Great story behind that, but I won’t clog up the thread with that story; I’ve reported on it elsewhere here on the SDMB.
But you’re right. We don’t tend to use juries in civil trials, as the US does, so juries are rarer.
Fun Fact: Two weeks after I relocated to Alberta from Ontario, I got a jury summons from Ontario. I wrote back, telling them that I would be happy to serve, if Ontario covered my travel and hotel expenses. Not surprisingly, I did not hear from Ontario again.
I don’t have to worry about jury service now. I’m a lawyer, and we are prevented by law from serving on juries.
The judge in my case said he got summoned for jury duty. So that happens here. Also in my case a lawyer was selected to be on the jury. But she was quickly excused by one of the case lawyers.
We tend to want to please and say “the right things”, and that is absolutely the WRONG way to go about jury duty if you don’t want to be chosen, which I don’t.
I remember being called into the courtroom with a large number of people and going through the screening process. It was a civil case involving a woman who was badly burned in a tanning machine. Pictures were shown of her injuries, and so was the agreement she signed that stipulated that the signee was accepting the possibility that injuries within “reasonable parameters” could occur. When the defense attorney got to me and asked me his first question, I responded with a firm voice: "Look, as a juror, the whole case for me would hinge on whether THOSE (thrusting a stabbing finger towards the posted pictures) are injuries that could be considered “reasonable risks”. Finished, I stared firmly and intently into his eyes.
This will come as a shock to you, but I wasn’t chosen! 
I’ve only been called once, almost 50 years ago. When I was asked what my job was, I said I was a civil servant, and was immediately dismissed. Too bad - I was looking forward to it as a new experience, and jury duty was a paid leave period for civil servants.
One jury I served on was a DUI case – I don’t remember if it was simply that or there was a wreck involved. The defense attorney kept asking us veniremen if we would take the testimony of an officer over that of a citizen simply because he was a cop. The jury selection was done just before lunch and the judge said, “This is not a TV show – don’t go investigating anything yourself. If we want you to see the intersection where the arrest took place we will take you there,” then added, 'it’s been changed since the incident anyway."
After a 90 minute lunch we spent an additional 45 minutes cooling our heels in the hallway then only the judge was there when we were let in the courtroom. He thanked us for our service and said the defendant had taken a plea bargain. “Too bad. It looked like it would have been an interesting case.”
My first jury was a person who battered two people in a notorious club that has been in town for decades. It’s a small town and it would have been nearly impossible to find a full jury of people who otherwise could serve and had never set foot in the place. It’s the last place in the world you would expect to find me but a friend had a birthday party there once and a different friend dragged me in there one time to be funny. People who were regulars and one person who was good friends with the owner were exempt.
Edit: The Wildcat Lounge aka The Shitty Kitty.
In 2003, my wife and I were called for jury duty for the same trial. And we were both picked.
A pizza shop owner was charged with five counts of sexual imposition (ORC § 2907.06). I think there were seven witnesses. Each was a young female who worked at the shop, and each gave testimony about the owner being very “hand’s-on.” Some were under 18. After the testimonies the defendant’s attorney said, “I moved for acquittal on behalf of my client on the grounds the state had failed to prove the charges, specifically because there was not corroboration for each of the complaints.” The judge (also female) upheld the motion, and the defendant was acquitted. So we never made it to the jury room to deliberate.
The defendant was elated about it, unsurprisingly. As we were leaving, the defendant told us to stop by his pizza shop and he will make us a pizza for free. We declined, because we believed the women’s stories.