Several posters have shared their personal juror experiences in this thread:
Rather than derail that thread, let’s share our stories here. I love hearing them!
I’ve only ever got one jury summons. I phoned the sheriff (who I knew) and said that I couldn’t serve, being a lawyer. He laugh and took me off the list.
Here in WA, when you get a jury summons, you’re “on call” for one week, from Monday to Friday. You get assigned a group number, and every evening you can an automated phone line to find out if you have to go in the next morning. I’ve gotten three summons since I moved here, but only wound up having to go in once. The most recent summons I got, I called in on Sunday night and the announcement said that the entire jury pool had been dismissed for the entire week, which came as some surprise since the county is still dealing with a backlog of criminal cases that piled up in 2020 when all trials were put on hold indefinitely due to the pandemic.
The case was a DUI where the defendant had refused a breathalyzer. During voir dire, the judge dismissed a woman who said she would find someone accused of DUI guilty no matter what, a man who said that only God can judge the guilty or the innocent, and another man who happened to be the judge’s next-door neighbor. The defense attorney called on me and accused me of not paying attention, but my response must have satisfied him because I wound up on the jury.
The trial wound up being a one-day affair that took us about half an hour to find the defendant guilty. He took the stand in his own defense and explained that the move the cop pulled him over for, speeding through a roundabout, wasn’t dangerous, and attempted to “prove” it by showing a dashboard cam video of himself speeding through the same roundabout again. The testimony from the arresting officer and the state’s expert witness on field DUI examinations was enough to satisfy us.
I’ve never done jury selection; jury trials are not my line of work. But I’ve asked lawyers who do jury trials about the statement that you often hear, that lawyers don’t want smart people on a jury. The standard response is: “If I’m running a complex trial, you think I want idiots who don’t understand deciding the case?!?”
(My personal thought is that people who are excused from jury duty often seem to think it’s because they’re too smart. No. It’s because for some reason, the lawyers don’t think you should be on the jury. That could be because of personal knowledge; too self-confidant to listen; too easily led and deferential; and a host of other factors.)
I’ve been called three times. The first was during my senior year of high school during finals week. I was excused from that one. The second was when my kids were still young and I was again able to get excused.
The third one, however, I went in to see if I’d be chosen. It was 2021, so still in the midst of COVID precautions. I was in the last group of people to be called in for jury selection. I can’t remember what kind of case it was, just that it didn’t seem like one of those heavy cases. It took them about 15 minutes to find their juries and alternates. I think only two people were dismissed and as soon as they got the last alternate the rest of us were let go. They didn’t have any other cases so I was gone in 2 hours.
Of course, in Hubby’s case, he’s never been summoned. Not once. I’m not sure how I feel about it…
I used to get summoned all the time, but have only served twice. I’ve only gotten to the Voir Dire part twice as well, so I guess they are OK with smart, opiniated women in some cases.
One was a ugly stalking case and the other was a federal murder case. Do not recommend, try to get a nice civil rights case if you can.
One of the most thoughtful questions I heard during all of the sessions was “what bumper stickers or other decorations do you have on your car and please tell me about them”. I was really surprised by that question, but having time to sit and think about it, yeah, you can learn a lot about what they have on their cars. Even more 15 years ago when it happened.
As to the big trial that spawned this thread? I would not want to sit on that jury, no way, no how. If called, I would schedule hip surgery or something. Anyone in the courtroom want a kidney?
I completely agree. My experience watching lawyers pick juries is that the prefer folks who are easy going, willing to listen and pay attention and reserve judgment until they’ve heard all the evidence. And they definitely don’t want idiots who don’t understand their task!
It’s kind of interesting to watch jurors, too. I lived in San Luis Obispo County, where the locals were particular about how the name of their town was pronounced. People who didn’t live in the area often mispronounced it.
One lawyer from Los Angeles was attempting to ingratiate himself with the jury in his opening statement and commented, “My, you folks have such a lovely town here in San Looooeeeeeyyyy Obispo!”
I watched every single juror sit back in their seat and fold their arms.
He lost the case. Sadly foreseeable.
I worked on a couple other jury trials where there was just… something about a certain criminal defense attorney that people couldn’t stand. It was hard to watch him try a case. I never put my finger on what it was about him that people found detestable, but it was something. No matter how he cajoled and joked, jurors were repelled by him. He never won a case that I saw. I felt bad for his clients.
Another civil lawyer I knew had the gift of an excellent memory for names. He could call every prospective juror by name during jury selection without referring to notes. They ate it up and he always won his cases. A very effective trick for a trial lawyer!
The one time I was up for selection, the case involved an insurance claim and a forklift accident. As part of the potential jury questioning, I mentioned that I had some experience using forklifts and was asked about it. A couple others also had some forklift or warehouse experience and got asked about it. I noticed that none of us were selected in the end.
I don’t think it’s that we were “too smart” but I did assume that the lawyers were concerned that our experience/knowledge with forklift equipment might make us draw our own conclusions above and beyond what the presented evidence suggested.
Before I became a lawyer (and thus disqualified from jury service, as I explained in the other thread), I was summoned to serve on a jury. This was when I lived in Ontario, and it was a coroner’s jury–five people who listened to testimony from witnesses in order to determine what the cause of death actually was, and to recommend ways to avoid a similar death in the future. Hey, I actually saw myself in courtroom sketches on the evening TV news.
In this case, it was a woman who, in an attempt to commit suicide, swallowed muriatic acid. Then she changed her mind. She called 911, and an ambulance and a doctor responded. Note that 911 knew that she was in severe danger, and found a physician to go with the ambulance.
Problem was, that no nearby health facilities could deal with this–they didn’t have trauma units. She was about two hours north of Toronto, which had hospitals with trauma facilities. Off the ambulance went, breaking speed limits, to get to Toronto. The doctor was on the radio with all of them, but like the Joseph and Mary story, there was no room at the inn. No Toronto trauma centre would accept her; they had no room.
Eventually, the ambulance ended up at a hospital about an hour north of Toronto, where they tried to treat the woman, but she was pronounced dead.
Okay, our role. First understand that before the provincial legislature, the Minister of Health proclaimed that it was the doctor’s fault–if he had only called the Provincial Trauma Hotline, he would have found someplace to take her. The Minister said so, and it’s in Hansard (the record of all Canadian federal and provincial legislative proceedings), so there’s no doubt.
What our jury found was that there was no Provincial Trauma Hotline, and that the Minister was blowing smoke with that one. Yep, we found that she was lying to the provincial legislature, trying to convince them of the existence of something that simply did not exist.
Although I can no longer serve on a jury (being a lawyer, as I mentioned in the other thread), I feel good about serving on that one.
That’s it, precisely. The jurors are to decide the case based on the evidence that is presented in open court, on oath, and subject to cross-examination by the opposing counsel. The case is not to be decided based on secret evidence that the parties and the judge don’t know about. What if you or one of the others had started talking about fork-lifts and adding information that was not presented in court? That’s not fair to the accused, nor to the prosecution.
That’s the error in Twelve Angry Men and also the Happy Days episode where Fonzie and Mr C are on the jury together. In both cases, the jury decides based on evidence that was not presented in court.
One serious criminal jury trial I worked on earned a mistrial because one of the jurors brought a dictionary into the jury room. The jurors weren’t clear on the meaning of a particular word. The bailiff didn’t notice when he secured them for their day of deliberations. To be fair to the bailiff, the juror had stowed it in a bag she carried into the deliberation room.
A 3-week trial down the drain because of a dictionary.
The judge isn’t kidding when he/she says jurors are prohibited from taking any evidence outside the courtroom.
The trial I was on, the bailiff made us surrender our phones before entering the courtroom and during deliberations, and we were only allowed to have them back during our lunch break and whenever we were sent to the waiting room so the judge could conduct business with the attorneys that he didn’t want us to see. And this was in 2011, so smartphones hadn’t become ubiquitous yet. I had one, but out of the other five jurors I think I was the only one. I imagine these days they must be much stricter about jurors’ phones, since every one of us essentially has an encyclopedia in our pockets.
There were a few occasions where the judge ordered counsel to approach the bench without dismissing us. The first time this happened, he said “It may seem like we’re trying to keep secrets from you right now. That’s because we are. Please don’t try to listen in.”
I’ll bet you’re right. In my day, it wasn’t a worry. But it sure is now.
In Canada, we don’t have “approach the bench”. Everything is said in open court, so the public knows exactly what’s going on. The jury leaves during the discussion with counsel.
I’ve only served on one jury. It was a grand jury investigating allegations of police corruption in the 30th precinct. We met every Wednesday afternoon for about a year. We extended our stint once, and refused to do it a second time.
I took notes, against the instructions of the lawyer. Later, when things dragged on and jurors had trouble remembering details, be advised the other jurors to refer to my notes. Of course, you don’t get “mistrials” in grand juries, as they only indict, they don’t convict.
I lived somewhat close to the 30th precinct, and the judge who empaneled me was a little worried about my safety, should a police officer who testified recognize me. For the entire length of that service, i stayed out of the 30th precinct. My husband sometimes brought the kids there, but i stayed away.
In case you are curious, yes, many of the allegations were correct. The precinct was rife with corruption. Police sold drugs, stole drugs, stole money, beat the crap out of people, and framed an innocent man by planting weed in his car for the purpose of stealing the car. The gross miscarriage of justice is that a lot of the worst of them made plea bargains and got off with a slap on the wrist.
We were encouraged to take notes, but they made us surrender them after we were done deliberating.
That was some really brave grand jury service. It’s good we have people like you who are willing to do it.
Ha! While you are correct, the only jury I’ve been able to sit on since being called to the bar, was in a community theatre production of Twelve Angry Men. I was Juror Number Two, the one with the watch with a second hand. Fun times!
How is this allowed?
As any law student will tell you, because it is hammered into their heads, day after day, “Never assume facts that are not in evidence.”