There used to be a law in my state excluding lawyers, cops and several other professions from serving. Possibly doctors and nurses I forget. But they did away with that something like 30 years ago. They needed a bigger jury pool.
They also probably wanted to make the pool more representative of the community and end arbitrary exclusions
I was one selected for trial. I sat through a 2 week ordeal and at the last second, he copped a plea deal.
Now that I’ve turned 70, I don’t think I’ll serve again:
In California, there is no upper age limit for jury duty, but residents aged 70 or older can be excused if they have a medical condition or impairment that makes service difficult. You do not need a doctor’s note to request this exemption, but you must submit a written request to the Jury Commissioner.
I served on one jury, an experience that I’ve shared on here before. It wasn’t particularly pleasant (rape case, where we found him guilty), and I walked out of the courtroom hoping I’d never get picked again.
Wulp, about five years later I got called and my name was selected among the first 40 who went into the courtroom for questioning by the attorneys and judge. One of the other 40 was a woman who was an acquaintance of mine, and her children went to the same school as my kids. During the initial questioning, the judge asked if any of us knew each other. Mary (not her real name) raised her hand and said “Yes, I know Railer who’s sitting in the back row.” When the judge asked her how she knew me, she was going to say that our kids go to the same school, but instead she said “We have children together.”
Of course, everybody cracked up, and she quickly amended her answer. But evidently the damage had been done, as neither she nor I were picked for the jury. Much to my relief.
I’m just hard-of-hearing. COVID was tough for me because of the face masks.
Supermarket checkout is always tough for me, because I’m watching the items, and if the clerk speaks, I’m lost. Subconscious guessing works if I already know what you are talking about, but throws up blanks or random garbage if I don’t already know what you are talking about.
Phone conversations are mostly OK for me, which is why I describe myself as just Hard-of-hearing. Bandwidth limits (phones limit at 3K) don’t affect me at all, because I can’t hear those frequencies anyway, and people habitually speak clearly into the phone, to make up for the fact that on a phone, you can’t hear any better than I can normally.
In normal speech, a lot of people have the habit of starting sentences loud and clear, than tailing off into a quiet ending, or even turning away mid-sentence. Insanely, when you ask people to speak louder and clearer, they just do the same thing: raise the volume on the first couple of words. One training exercise I read explicitly used the term “speaking louder” for what you should not do, with the explanation that repeatedly shouting the first word in a sentence did not help.
Trained speakers don’t do that, but it’s sad how many people that should be trained speakers aren’t.
In any case, I’ve never had trouble hearing a judge, when I’m listening, and that judge is intentionally speaking to the court, even though I’m too distant to get a good look at their face. Judges often start out as courtroom lawyers, and have quite a lot of public speaking experience before they get to the bench.
Yeah, depending on the drive. Last time the drive would have been 45minutes to an hours each way. I begged off. But here at the local courthouse, I would go. There are some advantages in being old.
Yeah, For me it is just high range hearing but it is better if a soprano woman talks directly to me.
I was called to report for questioning the same week that I was let go from my job. One of the lawyers asked what I did for work, and I said I’m no longer with my company because of a “resource reduction”. He was puzzled and asked what is a “resource reduction”? I told them it was corporate speak for what you would call getting laid off. The attorneys and the judge all laughed, but I got accepted anyway; they probably thought that I would have lots of free time on my hands.
Presumably you could use the money at that point.
When I was living in Santa Clara county I was called for jury service every two years like clockwork. You had to go in at the time and would actually move to the selection process about half the time. Pay was $25 a day plus mileage. Both employers I had during the period would give me a days pay for the jury-duty days. One would deduct the $25, the other let me keep it.
Alexandria, VA. I was happy to ditch work for a couple days. A police detective and the lawyer who handled his divorce were suing each other and we jurors didn’t like either one of them. The lawyer, a woman, ran up excessive billing hours and delivered crap results and was too chummy with the opposing counsel, and the (male) cop unconvincingly claimed he didn’t know lawyers did that sort of thing. We found him liable, but only for half what she was asking. She hired a really expensive lawyer to plead her case, reinforcing the idea she liked running up bills someone else had to pay, but we only made the cop pay for half of the opposing attorney’s fees. I wanted to find the cop completely liable but make the lawyer pay her own legal fees, but the judge wouldn’t let us bundle the two issues together. Separately, that was the equivalent, though.
I’m relying on 30 year old memories but I believe the need to get warm bodies in the seats was the reason cited. Around the same time (maybe the same law) they expanded the list of places they could pull names from. Now basically if the government has your name anywhere you can get jury duty. The former exemptions made sense because it was mostly a list of people who are unlikely to be placed on a jury. About 30 days until my jury duty. I will be shocked if I get picked at all but there is no way I’m going to be on a criminal trial or any civil trial involving a car accident. Probably nothing else either.
Maybe an employment case or contract dispute. Some civil car accident cases are admitted liability and just a question of damages. So, you might get on.
Thanks for this @Lucas_Jackson ! I turn 65 in June and I’m excited! Could it be that I won’t get my next summons until after I turn 70? I’m confident I can find an impairment that makes service difficult.
I was called near the end of the year the last year I was eligible. We sat through through the entire spiel (which was actually quite informative in this courtroom) and they were in the process of picking jurors and then right before they got to me, the judge walked in and dismissed the whole bunch of us. They informed me i would be called again soon. My birthday being in March, I just knew it be while I was still eligible. Surprisingly though, haven’t heard back.
A number of years ago, one of my brothers, an old-time pilot with something like 30,000 hours, bought an airplane from a private seller in our state. Then he found out that the airplane he bought had the wings from a completely different kind of airplane.
In other words, it was not possible to fly the airplane legally.
My brother filed a lawsuit and his lawyer said it was a slam dunk case for fraud.
When I twas getting ready to go to trial, I told my brother that it didn’t look good. He said that to the contrary, everyone in the seller’s hometown knew how big an s.o.b. he wa and that would make my brother’s wih particularly easy.
It went to trial and my brother lost. According to the lawyer, everyone in the seller’s hometown know how big an s.o.b. he was, but he was their s.o.b. and so they decided in his favor.
If the trial had been just about anywhere else, my brother would have won. Instead, he ended up having to pay the lawyer and to buy a pair of the correct wings for the airplane and have them installed.
Twice for me - first time rejected after answering a few questions. Second time - enough jury members (and backups) had been selected before they reached me.
Karma is a motherless something-something.
Where I used to live in California, I got regular summonses every 2 years. But that was no biggie because I worked in the courts, was already there, and only once was I sworn in as a juror. The case settled just after opening statements, so not much in the way of actual service.
In the 20+ years I’ve lived in my present location, I’ve only been summoned once. It was a call-in situation and we were excused before having to report to the courthouse.
Until now. I see in my USPS informed delivery preview of what’s coming in today’s mail is… a jury summons.
I’m going to hope for a similar outcome to last time. My situation is much different now, and it will be very difficult to be away from home for hours every day if I actually have to serve. I know how to get out of it, but I feel bad doing that. Being a juror is the only part of the trial process I haven’t experienced through to completion. And I know how important jury service is to how our system works.
Guess I’ll take it as it comes. I know it is very unlikely I’ll end up as a sworn juror.
This has always amazed me. I think the reason was once explained, but I still find it incredibly ironic. “What? You understand the law? Nope, we don’t want your kind on a jury – get outta here!”
What makes it doubly ironic is that the accused can often choose to be tried by judge alone, the judge being presumably appointed to the position because of an extensive background in practicing law and his extensive knowledge of it.
In the famous case of sexual assault against former CBC host Jian Ghomeshi, the defense very wisely chose trial by judge alone. The reason? Ghomeshi’s reputation was widespread throughout the entertainment industry, and it was soon apparent that he’d been doing this for years, so public sentiment was overwhelmingly against him and he was universally considered to be guilty as sin.
But when the judge made his ruling, he found that key witnesses had apparently conspired in their testimonies and lacked sufficient credibility to convict. So Ghomeshi was ruled not guilty due to insufficient evidence. The public was infuriated. I’m pretty sure a jury would have ruled the other way.
I was in the courtroom one time for a civil trial. I didn’t make it to voir dire before they filled the jury but a co-worker happened to be on that jury. It was a long time ago but as I recall it had to do with former romantic partners and one claiming it was a gift and one claiming it was a loan.
A lawyer was being questioned in the jury box whose specialty was something like wills and estates, never went to court and graduated law school over twenty years prior. He was a complete ass. The judge was a little leary about letting him on because as the judge explained it, lawyers tend to either not participate much and sit back and academically study the process or take over and the rest of the jury defers to them. I don’t remember which way the case went but I do remember that it was a totally obvious and easy call for the jury to make. My co-worker also said that the lawyer was just as much of an ass as he seemed and did indeed take over.
Where I live, the judge is nearly always going to be more sympathetic than a jury.
Two examples that I may have mentioned before:
A 28 year old man pled guilty to the statutory rape of his 14 year old girlfriend. The judge was willing to give him two years in prison which was the lowest he could go. The defendant wanted no prison time and a jury could sentence him to probation only so he requested a jury to determine the punishment. He got the maximum of, I think, eight years.
In another case, one known criminal was charged with a burglary in my county. The man knew he didn’t do it but could not remember where he was at the time. During the trial, someone said something that jogged his mind – he was in jail about 100 miles away in another county! The defense attorney and prosecutor had a sidebar with the judge who then dismissed court for the day and then called the sheriff of the other county.
The next morning, the sheriff of the other county was there with his jail ledger. He testified that the defendant was in jail in his county and showed his ledger to prove it. The judge then dismissed the charges with prejudice.
Some members of the jury were reported to be very upset by this development – they wanted to send him in prison before he could commit more crimes in our county.