If the option was not available, you could approach the bailiff to talk to the judge separately.
To be clear, the option for private discussion was not offered to us.
In that case you could have said that you didn’t want to state your issue in open court. The judge should not get mad at you.
I would need to have known this was an option.
Are “I never trust what the police say” and “I always trust what the police say” magic words for getting out of jury duty for a criminal case (not that I plan to use either excuse)?
I’m sorry you had to reveal something that you didn’t want to. When I was on a jury, I learned via a similar revelation in open court that someone at my workplace had suffered domestic violence or abuse.
Quite true. I think the comments “you could have asked for private questioning” are meant more to educate future jurors in that situation than as a comment on what you did.
In trials with obviously sensitive subject matter, almost all judges offer jurors a chance to answer more privately (not entirely private of course, both lawyers and the court reporter will be there). In a run of the mill type of case judges sometimes don’t think of it. I’m sure they would oblige if asked though. All judges I’ve been in front of try very hard to make the jurors’ experience as positive as possible
Right. In my experience as a juror, the court tried to make accommodations for the jury. For example, one juror was late coming back from a break in the trial. She explained that she was feeding a parking meter. The bailiff told us not to worry about parking tickets and that if we received any during the trial, they would be cancelled. I think the reason is that any delay is a big problem.
I thought it was “I can spot a criminal a mile away.”
“He smells guilty”
It was case involving a two car accident, one driver suing the other for injuries he claimed to have sustained. The prospective juror was female, perhaps in her fifties with an unhealthy looking tan and Botox usage. She said she refused to considerable punitive damages because she could tell the guy suing was obviously uninjured just by looking at him. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, she was apparently eager to be off the jury without caring that others would perceive her as a total fucking idiot.
Probably not punitive damages in such a case. Maybe “general damages” (i.e., pain and suffering)
I think it was pain and suffering. Thanks.
But you repeat yourself.
/Mark Twain
It is. No proceedings can start until the full panel of prospective jurors is present and accounted for.
As for private discussions, our judges made it clear that we would accommodate those needs, but for the sake of the rest of the panel, we would ask those jurors needing privacy to wait until we’d handled the rest of the panel. It served two purposes: It didn’t waste the rest of the jurors’ time, and it did impose some inconvenience for the accommodation, which would hopefully discourage at least some from asking for it. It is very time consuming to move a large panel in and out of the courtroom, then ensure all are back before continuing with proceedings.
Actually in the case I described, the woman who was delayed in returning was a member of the actual jury, not even a prospective one. We were all amused at the idea that we could get our parking tickets fixed. (There was a parking lot for juries but some days it was full.)
I only got called for jury duty selection once. There were a few people who didn’t speak English very well and the judge said they could get a one year deferral from getting called.
There was one discussion as follows:
Judge: Why do you think you shouldn’t have to serve?
Juror: I can’t hear very well.
Judge: Can you hear me?
Juror: Yes.
Judge: Then you can hear well enough to serve.
In the case of the trial in which I served on the jury, one woman claimed poor English language skills as a reason not to serve. But one juror said she spoke English just fine in the ladies room.
Thank you.
One juror I saw wanted to serve. He was an underemployed day laborer and the juror fee was a steady, if small, income. But his English was halting and he obviously didn’t understand everything the judge said (and she was using plain words, no fancy law talking), so she reluctantly dismissed him.