That’s good but, as Cecil mentions, it excludes an entire segment of the population from the process just because they can’t afford to take part. Wouldn’t the court system benefit from having a larger pool of potential jurors to choose from, including those who normally couldn’t afford to miss work?
My employer offers full pay while on jury duty (I’m salaried, but I think this goes even for the hourly employees, based on how many hours they probably would have worked), but not everyone is that lucky. It’s not even applicable to everyone’s situation. What about the case of a stay-at-home parent who is called for jury duty, and would have to either pay for child care or have their spouse miss work to care for the children? I assume the hardship exemption would apply, but that’s still someone being excluded from the process which employer wage continuation wouldn’t help.
I’ve heard rumors that because we’re paid, we have to turn over the jury stipend check, but it may just be a rumor. I work two blocks from the courthouse, so if it’s true, we’re not being stiffed on travel expenses.
I’ve never served on a jury, but my son did. The only thing he complained about was having to stand in the hallway whenever the judge and lawyers conferred. There were no benches.
Maybe when the new courthouse has finished construction, they’ll get benches. Or jury rooms with actual chairs.
I remember back to the OJ trial and while jurors didnt get paid, didnt the judge go ahead and pay some peoples bills like rent? Jurors were also put up on nice hotels and they paid for meals.
I think the OJ trial scared many people because the idea of being stuck on jury duty for a month and not only not being able to work but to not see your family would be pretty hard.
And not only are those folks denied the opportunity to participate in the system, but their peers, when they go on trial (which is distressingly often) are denied the right to have a jury of their peers. Not only are the poor more likely to end up in court, but once there, they’re judged by people who don’t understand their situation.
Oh, I agree – that’s why we worked hard to keep PJs even when it was a hardship. But as a practical matter, how do you pay for it? Everyone bitches when taxes go up, and never more so than when the funds are for “guv’mint.” The courts in California ask employers to contribute by paying their employees during their jury duty. Is that unreasonable? How many employees do you know that spend more than one day away from the job for an extended trial? Not many, I’ll bet.
I agree. That’s a stupid oversight. But then, the county where I worked managed to build 5 courtrooms with the jury box on the wrong side of the room (there is actually a right side and a wrong side) before someone noticed.
My suggestion is that your son write to the jury commissioner and let them know it’s a problem. I know where I worked, they would pay attention to such things and work hard to remedy them.
The OJ jurors were sequestered, which is a rare occurrence these days. Change of venue would be a much more common choice in circumstances of high publicity trials, but in the OJ trial, that wouldn’t have made any difference.
When a jury is sequestered, then yes – the court pays for their room and board for the duration of the trial. Gets very expensive very fast.
I’m unaware if Judge Ito paid for anyone’s rent. If he did, that would have been extremely unusual. I’ve never heard of a judge ordering such a thing, but I suppose it’s possible. We won’t go into how I felt about how Judge Ito handled that trial.
Again, I agree it’s a problem, but finding a solution is harder than it seems. Trials are expensive. Extremely expensive. Lengthy trials are even more so. Add the death penalty and the costs go through the roof.
Personally, I advocate professional jurors drawn from a large pool of individuals across the spectrum. Educate them about what jury instructions mean and the definitions of terms of art thrown around by judges and lawyers, well understood among their own but basically unintelligible to the layperson. Pay them decently. But I admit this solution has drawbacks of its own and would be very expensive.
Still, in my own experience, the average person nowadays is so uneducated about their judicial system, how it works and what they’re meant to be doing while on jury duty, it’s counterproductive. Again, based on my own experience, the most common reason for mistrials and cases returned from the appellate court for retrial is juror misconduct. Often, the jurors didn’t even mean to jeopardize the verdict – but they did, all the same. Happened all the time. Some even did it deliberately. Usually the ones who were forced to sit on a jury where they didn’t want to be.
I’m self employed. I’d happily miss out on some money in order to serve on a jury, but I cannot afford to pay my employees for time I’m not there generating the income that pays their salary.
“Federal workers, we’ll note, have it good — they get paid their regular salary, in lieu of the usual compensation, to sit on a jury”
Half right
Federal employees do collect their regular pay, but DO have to turn over the stipend to the Agency. At least at the Agency I’m at. Not much grounds for complaint.
I asked about this once at a (non-government) job, and was informed in no uncertain terms that payroll/HR was not going to spend a thousand dollars of various people’s time to handle a ten dollar reimbursement to the company. But that if I felt guilty about it, I was always free to buy donuts.
I’ve done various kinds of jury duty over the years and mostly my employers required me to turn over any jury pay to receive my regular pay for the time spent away from the job.
Where I live now (and have been called in twice since I moved here, I’m just lucky that way), the jury waiting room is lined with vending machines and has bookshelves loaded with donated books and magazines. Free wifi as well. And the restaurants in the vicinity give people with juror badges a discount on their lunches. I think you can also get a discount in a nearby parking garage with that juror badge.
State law says you can be excused from service if you are elderly or have small children or have a health condition that would make it difficult to serve. If you are a small business owner, they usually let you off if you request it. For all of these reasons and people just being people, usually the jury call is for several hundred people at a time. It’s a very large waiting room.
In my county if you are called at an inconvenient time you can call them and reschedule yourself into am upcoming jury pool when it’s not a problem for you, they’re very flexible that way.
Most people serve no more than a day, though I’ve been held as long as a week (and was also sequestered, but that’s another story for another time).
First time called, I had to report to the courthouse Monday morning and if not seated on jury, on call for the rest of the week.
I sat in the main room for a couple hours before getting sent with a jury pool of about 40 people to a Family court. We were there for an hour or so, then broke for lunch. We were told we had an hour and a half and there were some restaurants down the street, but we needed to be back on time. Anyway, the break was scheduled and we had to meet the time criteria.
Took the rest of the afternoon to empanel the jury, and I wasn’t selected.
Friday got notified to show up at a JP court at 1 pm. Some insurance claim for hail damage on a house. Wasn’t selected.
Next time called, showed up at 1 pm with a pool of about 150 people. Turned out it was a wrongful death case for a BP plant explosion. We sat there until the court called to order, the judge gave us a rundown, and then we had to fill out some 5 page questionaires. Came back two days later, and they had reached a settlement. It seems the questionaires did not give BP much hope. Neither went over lunch.
Fourth event had to go downtown Houston. Sat there for a bit, went across the street to a courtroom, sat in that building another hour, finally got called into the courtroom, which was empty. Then the judge came in and told us that for whatever reason they had to cancel that day, and we were all off the hook with our jury duty served.
I got paid $7 for Galveston and $9 for Houston but had to pay $2 for parking.
As a contractor to a federal job, I was paid my regular salary for jury duty (marked under a code on my timesheet), but was not required to hand over any money to the company. That just seems silly. Jury pay is insignificant and basically to cover expenses - gas, tolls, maybe a sandwich. Certainly not what anyone would consider a good day’s pay - even a guy on the corner collecting handouts.
Jurors and potential jurors are at the courthouse to be available to support the court’s schedule, so consequently they can’t just go hiking off whenever they want.
Depending on the location and situation, they might have bailiffs send out for lunch or bring in something. We broke for lunch on the only time I was there during that time, but if court is hearing testimony, they might not want to risk all the jurors can/will come back on time.
And if the jury is sequestered, you damn sure aren’t going to be able to go for a stroll to get pizza.
As others mentioned, it’s supposed to be a per diem for expenses in the course of fulfilling a civil duty, not a wage and certainly not enough to live off it. The laughable amounts like $6 probably were worth something back whenever first instituted but there has not been the political will to adjust it.
As to why it cannot be absolutely uncompensated, who knows maybe that would turn it into some sort of involuntary servitude.
Here’s a neat graph showing who pays what in New York State, where the daily juror “fee” is $40.
Upshot: companies with more than 10 employees must pay either $40/day or the employee’s usual wage, whichever is lower. The state makes up the difference, if any. Employers are encouraged, but not required, to pay an employee’s full usual wages.
Powers &8^]
In Morris County, NJ, they have one-day/one-trial, meaning that, if you’re not on a jury at the end of the first day, you’re done. So far (and I’m 67), I’ve never served. Apparently, lawyers are terrified of potential jurors who respond to voir dire in complete, grammatical sentences and who make nice distinctions.
I was salaried before I was old enough to serve on a jury, so pay was never a question. I, too, was instructed to just keep the government money as a bonus, because the extra paperwork if I refunded the company would cost more than it was worth.
Do they make exceptions to pay for longer trials? I ask because I just finished watched The People vs OJ Simpson, and that jury was sequestered for 9 months. They started with 12 jurors and 12 alternates. If any of them had a job that they needed to pay the bills on a house or car, and only got the minimum, they’d have lost it by the end of the trial. At least the fair thing would have been to pay them whatever wage they got in their jobs. And for spending day and night in a hotel for almost a year, they should be paid for all the time they spent away from their families. Otherwise, its no better than jail
