Has anyone here been called for it?
What was it like?
How many hours a day did it take?
Was it well paid?
I got a notice (my first) for jury duty last month for 8 a.m. and I would have had no one to watch my son while I went.
Fortunately, I am disqualified as a convicted felon (NEVER thought that would come in handy) so I won’t know.
But tell me.
I was called for federal court jury duty. There was about 200 of us, and they picked juries for several cases. I was picked for two, a blackmailing case (through the mail, hence the federal jurisdiction) and another one.
The blackmailing case was sordid. We found the guy guilty in about an hour and a half. Trial took about a week.
My next case started the very next week, but I got out of it because I’d already missed a week of work and I was the only one who did my job. Two weeks would have been too much of a hardship on my employer.
We were paid for parking and about $15/day.
It was 15 a day when I got called back in the summer of 2002. Freshly 18, I was only there a day. They let me go when they found out my cousin is a government lawyer.
My wife gets caled to jury duty every year without fail, I on the other hand have never been called.
I’ve always wondered something about jury duty.
Suppose you’re going on vacation in a month, and you want to make absolutely sure that you won’t be called on jury duty. Is there a way you can “sign up” ahead of time so you get it out of the way and not have to go back for a year?
AFAIK, no. It’s a random process. In any case, you’re not called Friday to report the next Monday. You’ve got enough time to possibly apply for a hardship excuse.
Robin
I am sure that the process varies by county. If you were here, you would get a general notice in the mail first which includes a form. You tell them on the form whether or not you are qualified and if you are unavailable on certain dates.
One time I was called and, if I were picked, the trial would have conflicted with a business trip. I told the judge and he asked me when I would be available. When that time came, I got another notice.
Finally, you are allowed to “volunteer” for jury duty here. Tell the clerk to sign you up and they will.
Haj
In New York, you have to wait until you are summoned before you can ask for a delay. Here, at least, they are very accommodating. They will ask you WHEN in the future (a year?) you will be available.
In Ontario, I got called for jury duty selection but it was cancelled twice in a row, and the third time it was cancelled they told me that I had fufilled my obligation and that I would be taken off the list for a few years.
My job at the time paid my full salary during jury duty, so I was actually looking forward to sitting in on a trial.
I’ve gone twice, but ended up not serving either time. On the first occasions, they filled the jury and got their alternates without ever calling my number, so I was done for the day. The second time, the case from the previous day still hadn’t finished by mid-afternoon, so we were all sent home.
Your location may differ, but in Massachusetts you’re called for one day or one case. If you don’t get picked for a case during that first day, you’re done until the next time you’re called up. If you do get picked, you serve until that case is finished.
Semi-professional juror weighing in…
I’ve been called for jury duty 5 times in the past 11 years and been picked for a jury 3 of those times. The first time was most interesting, a month long murder/arson trial that was high profile in my hometown and a very educational introduction to the justice system. An obviously biased synopsis of that case can be found here. My second was a drug dealing case (hung jury), and last year I served on a DUI/hit & run case (guilty).
While there were interesting aspects to all these cases, the one prevailing sentiment I came away with is that the justice system moves at a god-awful slow pace. Some days we sat in the jury room for hours or all day while who knows what was going on in the courtroom. 15 minute breaks frequently stretched into 40-60 minutes, lunch breaks were extraordinarily long, proceedings in the courtroom were tedious & drawn out… etc. etc. Mostly it’s boring, but some of your fellow jurors can be interesting/entertaining to meet and the conversation in the jury room can get lively and/or heated.
As for time, I typically had to report around 8-9 am and day wrapped up usually around 4 pm. Actual time spent in the courtroom observing court proceedings varied greatly, anywhere from zero to maybe 5 hours. When deliberating, you often stay into the evening hours if the judge feels you’re making progress. I’ve had to stay as late as 11 pm.
The pays sucks. My county court system pays $17.50/day plus mileage. Luckily, my employers have kicked in my regular salary. Some courts pay for lunch and have the bailiff escort the jury to a nearby establishment as a group. Others, you are free to go anywhere at lunch but it’s your dime.
Boy did you hit a sore spot with me.
Got a jury summons 5 weeks ago. Called and didn’t have to go.
Three weeks later, got ANOTHER jury summons. Called and didn’t need to go.
I dread going to the mailbox now. I just know they are going to keep on my ass until they get me.
I was on a jury once, in Beverly Hills, CA. Despite the location, it was the court house from hell…not enough seats, had to sit on cold marble floor for 6 hours. Got picked to be on a jury. Trial was dumb, we had to go every day but they only called us in for actual trial about 1 hour in the morning and another hour in the afternoon. Took a grand total of ten minutes to find the guy not-guilty and wasted a week of my life.
A woman who used to work with me was called to be on the OJ jury…she was actually selected but found out the next day thatshe was pregnant and got excused.
I got called once. Spent the whole day in a stuffy, crowded jury room. I never wound up being a juror…the judge went through a list of people who would be disqualified. he droned on and on…I got the feeling that ANYBODY with an IQ>35 would be disqualified.
What’s the deal with “voir dire”? The lawyers get to eyeball you and reject people they don’t like…it is so stupid! How can anybody determine competence based upon an eyeballing and a few questions?
They’re not trying to find out if the potential juror is “competent.” They’re trying to guess if he or she would be sympathetic to their own side. I’m sure it varies from place to place, but generally they get to remove a certain number of potential jurors for no particular reason at all, but they can disqualify for specific reasons as well. For example, the one case I served jury duty for, the major evidence was eyewitness by a security guard. They asked us if we, or any member of our family, had ever worked as a security guard. Of course, we didn’t know why that question was asked until later, when we heard the evidence.
I didn’t mind jury duty at all; it was interesting to see how the system really worked, as opposed to what’s on t.v. and the movies. I brought a book with me for the times when I was just waiting around. Some folks played cards or just chatted. It’s all in the attitude. One woman brought with her nothing at all, and just sat staring around being bored.
I’ve gotten a jury summons three times, but only had to go once.
Where I live, you get a number on your summons, and you call in the night before and if your number is within the range they mention you have to go in.
The one time I went in, I spent the whole time in the waiting room reading a book. We were all dismissed at noon, $15 richer. They stamped our parking passes, too, so parking was free.
I was called some years ago. As things turned out, I ended up on a coroner’s jury, at an inquest to figure out just why a death occurred. The case would take too long to explain here, but essentially it was our job to find out whose fault the death was (if anybody’s) and make recommendations so that a similar death wouldn’t occur in the future.
It was a fairly high-profile case and had been reported extensively in the media when it happened. The coroner’s inquest was more of the same; each day, we’d walk past a battery of TV and news cameras on our way into the court building, and inside the courtroom were the sketch artists. They couldn’t, by law, interfere with us or ask any questions of us as we walked past. But it was kind of fun to watch the evening news, since I could watch myself (and the other jurors, of course) going into the building and then see a sketch of us sitting in the jury box as the reporter spoke.
Of course, once the inquest was over, all court protection disappeared. As we left the courthouse for the last time, we were surrounded by reporters shoving cameras in our faces and asking questions. We ended up having a small impromptu press conference, then disappearing into a nearby pub (we all needed a drink after that).
I think my experience was a little unusual–I wasn’t waiting around to be called, or anything like that. The pay from the province was lousy (IIRC, it was $10 a day), but my employer paid me anyway for the days I had to be there. I kind of enjoyed the experience, but I think that was because the case was somewhat unusual and high-profile. If I had had to wait hours or days before being called for a run-of-the-mill simple crime case, I don’t think I would have liked it much.
I am so envious of anyone who gets called for jury duty. I got the summons once and like Bibliocat had to call a number on two successive weeks to see if I had to go in. The first week they didn’t need any jurors and the second week my number was like 12 too high to have to report. I was so pissed. I was unemployed at the time and actually could have used the stipend. A few months later when I was working again someone in the office got summoned and had to go in. There were two of us there who were so jealous that we actually called the clerk of courts to see if we could volunteer. She acted like we were nuts; told us we couldn’t volunteer. Wisconsin selects its juries based on state law and pulls potential jurors based on the pool of people who have drivers licenses. I always thought that was dumb. The pool should be as large as possible, not just limited to people with drivers licenses.
I got called for jury duty once in LA, I think it was 1998.
Spent two days sitting in the jury room, reading, until I found the only group of people actually laughing in the room, decided to sit with them, and met some great people! 
Then I was picked for a trial, which lasted about 3 days (assault & battery). It took us about 1.5 hours to reach a verdict (guilty).
The pay sucked… it was about $8.75/day, IIRC. 
Parking was free, and they chipped in a bit for milage, but not one of the best experiences I’ve had.
It was somewhat instructive on how the criminal-justice system works, but it was not a confidence builder into that institution :dubious: … no offense to those Dopers involved in that system, of course. 
I was selected for a jury on a civil case a couple of years ago.
It took about four days and I made $6 a day (nothing extra for parking). This was in Houston, Harris County, Texas.
No, and why would you?
If you get called in NY, you generally know weeks ahead of time. You can defer the date up to six months if you have a conflict. I’ve been defering my date for over a year now because fuck it…I just would rather not go.