It is ridiculous how low jury pay is. Around here they do not even give a free breakfast or lunch.
My company pays me my normal salary when I am on jury duty.
In keeping with long-standing SDMB practice, here’s the SD article in question.
The good news is that by and large, you agree with Cecil.
The even better news, I guess, is that you bring up the point about (not) being provided meals. Is there some reason to expect that? I’ve never heard of any governmental setting in which that would be a reasonable expectation. It’s not like they have chips and peanuts waiting for you in the polling place, or a soda fountain in the DMV.
Insufficient jury pay is something that everyone agrees is a problem and no one really works for a solution.
Jurors can be compelled to attend court, so I guess there’s not much incentive to raise the pay rate. And, the jurors with better jobs (and therefore perhaps more political clout) get paid by their employer while on jury duty.
Maybe our jury duty is the exception, but our jury room was amply supplied with snacks, coffee and sodas all day. When lunchtime came around, we were given a choice of ordering from several local restaurants like pizza places or McDonalds, or eating jail food, and we weren’t forced to all do the same thing. The county picked up the tab, no matter what/where we ordered, although I don’t think anyone tried for lobster or steak.
Hard to believe, but jail food – at least jury food from the jail kitchen – is quite good. Chef’s salads, hamburgers, sandwiches, soup, etc. While it doesn’t make me want to go to jail, I didn’t mind serving on a jury for 2 days. I forget what we got paid, but it was reasonable.
They pay something silly like $10/day here. My company pays me my full salary for maybe two weeks. The time I was on a jury it was for only four days total.
We deliberated over two days and on the morning of the second day the judge bought us a box of expensive pastries.
The gov (both federal and state/local) is noticeably stingy on food, often specifically by law. At the sort of meetings (like, say, academic workshops with invitees, for me) that a private company would provide coffee and cookies, if a gov office hosts it, it comes out of someone’s private pocket and a donation cup is set out. Providing coffee is considered somewhere in “waste, fraud, and abuse” I guess…
Aww… so no bitterly dramatic standoff with eleven angry jurors insisting on pizza and one lone holdout determined to get their Mickey D’s fix? 
[QUOTE=Cecil]
Why are the country’s highways and bridges falling apart?
[/QUOTE]
Probably because for every one guy actually working, there’re always 5 more guys just standing around watching, yet still getting paid, thus making it really expensive to maintain anything.
Juries don’t really have that same issue going on. Maybe if they got unionized shudder.
Cartoon I saw once: Hallway outside jury room. Uniformed bailiff standing just outside door, writing on notepad. Door open a crack, unshaven juror peeking out, speaking to bailiff: “Eleven hamburgers, one hot dog. Eleven fries, one onion rings. Eleven Cokes, one Pepsi . . .”
I was called for jury duty two days ago. Had to sign paperwork stating that I would only get mileage since I was a county employee. Spent 4 hours at the courthouse and was the first prospective juror bounced.
The government also doesn’t provide coffee and snacks in their offices. People have to pool for coffee, and get snacks from a vending machine.
However, I can see how jury duty is a different beast than going by the DMV or dropping by the police station. Jury duty may be an all day deal covering meal times that you are compelled to remain at. Ergo, they need to bring in food. I suppose the rub is whether the gov pays the tab or they collect the price from the jurors.
Long time listener, first time caller here. I joined the boards just to say the author needs to check his facts about jury “pay” in Maryland. It goes by county. I was called eight or nine times in Baltimore City, which at the time paid $15 for expenses. The last time was in 2005, when I was empaneled for the second time in my life (both civil cases). In Worcester County, where jurors arguably have to drive longer to get to the courthouse but encounter no bridge or tunnel tolls, nor parking fees, it’s $25. And they provided snacks and bottled drinks in the waiting room. The last time I served was December 2014.
I was also called once in Montgomery County, but do not remember what the “pay” was.
They specify “for expenses” because some employers, considering the money wages, will dock your earned wages by a corresponding amount. If it’s tagged as expenses, employers can’t dock you.
If you’re hourly, there’s nothing to “dock”. You’re paid for the hours you work. So if you’re called for jury duty, you only get the per diem from the court.
Ten bucks is ten bucks, I don’t see the problem.
If you work hourly and you miss a full day(or more) of work, there’s a problem.
Harris County (Texas) pays six dollars, I believe. I’ve been called twice and dismissed both times. The second time, they had a form we could fill out to designate our six-dollar pay to a charity in lieu of getting the check mailed to us. Since I didn’t really want to have to go cash a six-dollar check, I did that.
The part I don’t understand, if the pay is going to be so low, why pay at all? Or, looked at the other way, if you’re going to pay at all, why isn’t it at least minimum wage?
I assumed the pay was intended to just cover expenses. It is our duty as citizens to serve and I just got the form to submit which would be make me eligible for the next 12 months. Not self employed currently I’ll have no excuses, will get paid my regular salary and will be happy to sit their and grumble and complain about the boredom and waste of time if I do get called.
This is like an episode of Parks & Rec, I’m married to a Leslie Knope and if drives her nuts that I’ve been called several times and she hasn’t been called once.
I worked as a judge’s assistant for many years. Some things to consider:
Jury duty is a civic responsibility. Either you get this or you don’t.
If you have a valid hardship, you will be excused. Not getting paid while on jury duty is a valid hardship. No judge or lawyer I ever worked with wanted to keep someone on a jury if they were disgruntled over losing their wages. Much appellate hilarity ensues from angry jurors with agendas who want to make a point by abusing the process. Not worth it.
All the judges I worked with leaned hard on local employers to be generous in paying regular wages to their employees while on jury duty. Much easier to select a jury when people don’t have to worry about whether they can make their house payment. The first question asked of any prospective juror by the judges I worked with was, “Do you get paid while on jury duty?” If the answer was no, instantly excused except if the case was expected to take only one or two days – and even then, only if they answered the follow-up question in the negative: “Will losing your pay for two days pose a financial hardship for you?”
Budgets for the courts were never a priority for the state I worked in (California). I remember years when I grabbed up all the office supplies I’d need for the year in July (beginning of the fiscal year), because there was no assurance I’d have what I needed by the end of the year.
When selecting a jury for a lengthy trial, we frequently asked for a panel of 100+ prospective jurors per session, morning and afternoon. This is not excessive or unusual. Picking a jury is an inexact process. We were one courtroom of many courtrooms. Even if you had only 3 courtrooms picking a jury that day, it wasn’t unusual for our jury commissioner to manage up to 1,000 prospective jurors in a day. If we had to buy all of them lunch – let alone pay them their daily wages – you can do the math. Fiscally, it’s just not feasible.
The jury “pay” we issued ($12/day at that time) was intended to cover travel expenses.