By the way, I remember news reports some years ago about one trial in which one juror had both a law degree and a medical degree.
I am to report for jury service on April 1, 2026.
I’m trying to not read anything into that.
The idea is that the jury’s job is to find the facts of the matter. “Do these facts [witnesses, exhibits, documents, etc.] as presented prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty?” That’s all, and it is certainly within the capability of laypeople..
The problem with a lawyer on a jury is that the lawyer knows too much about the law. He or she will, undoubtedly, try to apply the law to the facts—after all, that was what the lawyer was trained to do at law school. But in the end, that’s the job of the judge. So, the easiest way to prevent a lawyer from trying to apply law to the facts discussed in jury deliberations is to simply bar lawyers from jury service.
Not all jurisdictions take the same attitude, of course, but I think you’ll find that all Canadian jurisdictions do. “The jury finds the facts and the judge applies the law to those facts” is drilled into every Canadian law student pretty much from Day One.
I hardly get any mail any more and so I don’t go by the post office to check it very often. The last time I got a jury summons, it was for a jury trial on a Wednesday and I didn’t get it until the following Saturday.
I sent a text message to the judge to apologize for not showing up and he text back to not worry about it.
I later found out that the defendant pled guilty at the last minute and so there was no trial.
You texted the judge and he texted you back. That’s a great story. Did the bailiff text him for you and relayed the message or something like that?
I’ve known the judge since high school. I even got in a fight with him one morning before school started when we were in high school. We got chewed out but nothing else happened.
I’ve been to his house on a number of occasions as well as his sister’s house, his late brother’s house, and his late mother’s house. They are/were all good people.
He retired a year and a half ago, but I also have the cell phone number for the new judge, too.
One time in the beginning of the week of calling in, my girlfriend was hospitalized. I called the clerk’s office and they told me to mail in the excuse form explaining that even though it would be late. I was re-called a couple of months later. Had I kept to the original panel, I wouldn’t have had to show up.
Make sure you get there before noon. You never know your luck.
They can run things however they want but a midweek show up sounds weird to me. I’ve only ever seen it for Monday. Of course my sample size is small.
In the courts where I worked for so many years, we called in juries on any day of the week. So Wednesdays aren’t unusual to me. We did calendars in the mornings and jury trials in late mornings (if the calendars were light) and/or afternoons.
It’s different everywhere, but in general, this is a drill I know well.
There’s also a call-in number for the night before, so I may well be excused before I ever have to make a physical appearance. Fingers crossed.
It can be any day of the week in my experience. My recollection, which is probably poor and definitely limited to a single courthouse, is that Monday is the least likely day to appear.
Your courthouse is housed in the county adjacent to the one where I worked, and we often shared tips 'n tricks between courts. California courts in general run pretty much the same. And you’re right – Mondays were always the heaviest calendar days, with the Master Calendar assigning trials to other courts and first arraignments heard after a weekend, to name a couple.
When a trial is assigned to another court, the first hours are usually spent going over scheduling and hearing of pretrial motions. So it’s not uncommon for prospective jurors to be called on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, depending on how much pretrial housework must be done.
Yep. In fact you probably know my buddy who was a career Public Defender over there. Deadhead who did Appeals work.
LOL, I probably do. Especially since I worked for the public defender’s office there before I went to work for the courts. PM me, if you want. 
In my life I’ve lived in 4 different counties in this state. For each one they have Monday as the show up date. You find out the day before if you have to come in (used to be a phone number you call and hear a message, now it’s an email). When you come in Monday you are either put on a jury, dismissed or told to come back. Any jury impaneled that week is from the pool that shows up Monday. By the end of Monday they will know how many they need for the rest of the week.
I’m sure things are different when there is a high profile case that they will need to go through many jurors.
Now that most of the jurisdictions (around here) are “one day or one trial”, they need a fresh pool on various days of the week.
When I lived in one big city (more than 30 years ago), they had new trials starting daily and so needed new juries daily.
Whenever I had jury duty in that city, I would show up on my motorcycle. The first time, I pulled up to the courthouse and couldn’t find any place to park so I asked a couple of motorcycle cops getting ready to leave on their motorcycles if there was a good place for motorcycle parking in the vicinity.
When they found out it was for jury duty, they told me to park there where they were parked. They were parked on the sidewalk in front of a disabled access door for the courthouse. I was dubious but parked there. When I was finished (not picked for the jury), my motorcycle was still there and without a ticket.
Generally first potential day is Monday and you find out the night before if you have to go in or call in again Monday night and so on. If you don’t have to show up on Friday, you’re off the hook for a year. If you do have to show up then you are assigned to a potential trial or sent home. Once you’ve shown up, whether or not you end up on the jury, you are exempt for a year. The exception is if you ask for a deferral because of a temporary health or personal issue in which case they will call you again after that is over.
(It used to be that you had to call in for two weeks and you were only exempt for six months if you didn’t actually show up).
I was called in on a Thursday, so maybe it’s not all that unusual.
Like I said, my experience is limited to 4 different counties.