Jury pay

[Do_Not_Taunt]

@John_W.Kennedy

Apparently, lawyers are terrified of potential jurors who respond to voir dire in complete, grammatical sentences and who make nice distinctions.

Do people understand that this kind of statement is insulting to those who have served on juries, many of whom regularly speak in complete, grammatical sentences and make complex distinctions all the time?

[BeeGee]

@Loopus

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.

Harris County is like Travis County: $6 a day for jury selection, $40 a day if you’re selected.

[Aspenglow]

@YogSothoth

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

The first thing courts do in conducting jury selection in a lengthy trial that’s expected to go for months is to time-qualify the prospective jurors. You can run through hundreds just doing that. In the lengthy trials I worked on, we always took the attorneys’ time estimate and doubled it. Amazing how often that turned out to be an accurate time estimate. We time-qualified enough PJs until we had a workable pool to begin regular jury selection. The whole point of doing this is to ensure that the people who end up on your jury know in advance what they’re getting into with respect to the commitment of their time and are comfortable with that.

We also selected lots of alternates, as they did in the OJ case. That’s why you have them: If someone is rendered unable to finish their service during the trial for any reason – including a developing hardship – they are replaced with an alternate. You can lose regular jurors for all kinds of reasons, such as illness, family issues, a conflict that wasn’t ferreted out during voir dire, or juror misconduct that occurs during the trial. Nothing worse than conducting a lengthy trial and not having enough alternates available to finish it. Experienced judges always err on the side of having too many alternates than not enough of them.

[hajario]

@John_W.Kennedy

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.

Of course it was because they were terrified of your intellect. There couldn’t possibly be any other reason. :rolleyes:

[Bucinka]

Fair enough. I’ve never been hourly, so I was thinking of salaried employees even though I typed wages.

[Bucinka]

@Doug_K

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.

Fair enough. I’ve never been hourly, so I was thinking of salaried employees even though I typed wages.

[hajario]

@Doug_K

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.

Are you speaking for every company in the country? My place will pay you for eight hours if you’re regularly scheduled. This is a company where people work an eight hour shift every week day though. It would probably be different if you got a different schedule every week.

[Doug_K]

@hajario

Are you speaking for every company in the country? My place will pay you for eight hours if you’re regularly scheduled. This is a company where people work an eight hour shift every week day though. It would probably be different if you got a different schedule every week.

Your place isn’t the norm. Why do you think so many people try to get out of jury duty? It’s because most people will lose at least a day of pay. Where I live it’s a day a week for a month if you don’t get picked.