I nearly served on a petit jury. I figured i was immune from service, between my experience with corrupt cops and working for a major insurance carrier. But this was a rape case, and neither cops nor insurers were going to be very important to it. But then the judge told us the precise dates he expected the jury to be empaneled, and i realized that it would prevent me from preparing Passover. I told the judge that. He asked me if i was saying [formal words i would never have come up with about interfering with exercising my religion]. I said yes, and he dismissed me.
I honestly don’t remember the details. This was years ago. I was annoyed that he wanted my to read back my notes, which he’d discouraged me from taking, though. Possibly, the stenographer wasn’t available that day to read the official notes.
Anytime I’ve been in court, I make sure I’ve got a notepad. I cannot help but take notes. Never been stopped, and neither have the reporters from local media outlets.
Yes, but if instructed not to take notes, I don’t know how it’s allowed.
Easy. The lawyer instructed you. Not the judge, whose word is … well, law. You can ignore the lawyer. You cannot ignore the judge.
I was chosen to serve on a regular jury once. I was summoned like clockwork every 2 years but usually excused by stipulation of the parties. But in this one case, I knew both lawyers quite well and each believed (mistakenly) that they would have an advantage with me on the jury.
It was a little misdemeanor and I think everyone thought it would be a bit of a lark.
Unfortunately (from my perspective), the defendant accepted a plea offer after we’d been released for the evening and the case settled. We were fully excused the next morning.
The oddest part about that trial was that I later learned from our jury services coordinator that one of my fellow jurors suffered from dementia and her husband had been frantically looking for her for the whole day before. She turned up home after we’d been released for the night.
It occurred to me she was the perfect prospective juror: She never raised her hand to answer any question posed by the lawyers, so they assumed she was completely neutral. (!!!)
I’ve served a couple of times. The last time was a child molestation case at a day care center. Not fun. I ended up being the foreman and at first it was like herding cats but quickly we came to a consensus and convicted the creep.
Some of their crimes upset and disgusted me, but i had a little sympathy on these. The officers earned about $60k in a year. They supported wives and kids. And in one of the incidents we heard about, an officer literally tripped over a block of crack cocaine worth $20k. That’s gotta be really tempting.
The thing that surprised me the most was the level of trust between the cops and the drug dealers. How do you turn a block of crack into money? You bring it to a local drug dealer and give it to him. He takes it home and weighs it, and comes back a couple days later to tell you what it weighed and give you cash. Think of all the ways that could go south for either party. And yet… that’s how it worked.
Also, i learned how to make crack out of regular coke.
I’ve been called to jury duty twice. The first time, after 1 1/2 days I wasn’t selected. The second time I was called to Federal court. I stayed for over 1/2 day, declining to make a public statement about why I couldn’t serve and wanted until they called for a sidebar with judge and attorneys. When there, I loudly (being scolded by the judge) that I had a decades long belief passed on my Dad that both prosecutor and defense attorneys were crooked because they would say and do anything to win! I was immediately dismissed.
I don’t know if it was recorded, but if I’m called to jury duty again, I’m writing a letter stating my long held belief.
Edit: On my first jury call, one of the prospective jurors said he couldn’t serve because the defendant looked like his nephew! He was dismissed.
If my letter doesn’t work and I’m still called to the jury pool, I’ll proclaim that that I’m vehemently opposed to anyone charged with unlawfully discharging a gun, distributing drugs or domestic violence because that are all things my disowned nephew has been charged and found guilty of. May he rot in jail the next time he goes there.
As an aside, one of the domestic violence convictions was because he assaulted my sister, whom I’m 100% sure he’ll kill someday, directly or indirectly.
Edit: BTW, he’s her only child and she’s had several TROs against him, which he’s continually violated.
The worst was when the police came looking for him at my Mom’s house. After she explained that he wasn’t living there anymore. After they left, she turned around and told me “They should put him in jail!” Harsh words about her first grandson!
a) Got summoned to do jury duty in late 1997 or early 1998, Suffolk County of Long Island. Had no car. Had to ride combo of buses to way-the-fuck-and-gone out in Riverhead. The dude monitoring the waiting area where we waited to be called and interviewed would not let me read my book, said it was disrespectful to the judge. (Because we were dumped into the back of the courtroom rather than having a separate room to wait). Had to return several consecutive days before finally getting called to be interviewed for a potential case. When I did, one of the attorneys did not like the fact that I’d worked as a social worker at an agency concerned with seniors, because a senior citizen was the plaintiff in the case and he figured I’d be biased. That got me off the hook, didn’t have to come back.
b) In 2004 or thereabouts got called again and this time seated on a special grand jury for drug charges. This was oh so much nicer. First off, we not only were allowed to read books during downtime, we could also use our laptops to watch movies. (yes, mine could play DVDs). Second, the jury duty itself was fun: we had to decide whether the prosecutor had a case. There was rarely anyone for the defense (no value in it for them; they could end up disclosing their thinking to the prosecution, not to their advantage to do so, and if it looked like prosecution had a case, they were rarely going to change that). We heard and dispensed with six or seven cases a day, interspersed with down time.
c) I got called more recently, went to downtown Mineola NY courtroom, was allowed to read and browse the internet, on third day was told I didn’t have to come back.
I’ve only been summoned for jury duty once, in the early 2000’s, and I was selected for a jury the very first morning. The judge warned us that it was likely to be a fairly long trial and asked if we’d be able to serve for the duration. It was actually a pretty good time for it for me; I didn’t have a paying job, my kids were both in their teens, and we had two working cars.
The trial was in District Court, and it was an awful rape case. The accused had been a cop at the time, and the victim was a 14-year-old girl. Honestly, by the end of opening statements, I was confident that we’d vote to convict and be out of there in under an hour if deliberation. However, once all the evidence was presented and his remarkable defense lawyers got through with it, we ended up deliberating for four days before being unable to reach a verdict. It was awful; we kept having to go over the facts that we’d been presented, which were horrible, and in the end, we just couldn’t do it.
I was very good and I followed the instruction not to read the paper or watch news for the duration of the trial. After it was over, I read the newspaper stories. If we’d have been able to go on what was reported, we would 100% have convicted the guy. I came away with a much deeper understanding of the job a jury has to to and a greater respect for the process of the law in s courtroom, as flawed as the overall justice system is.
I’ve just been summoned for the first time; I have to show up at the district court this Wednesday. I’ll report back if/when I’m able with my experience!
Here in Toronto, I have only been called for jury duty twice, both times to the Superior Court which handles federal criminal cases amongst others. I get selected the first time, but not the second. Each time, myself and the about 200 other people who’d been called in got divided into smaller groups of 20, and after a short presentation about what jury duty meant and how the selection process worked, we sat around waiting for our groups to be called into various courtrooms for the selection process
My first time was just over 20 years ago now. The court clerk had a cool wooden drum mounted on a stand containing the names of the potential jurors, which was rotated with a crank handle, and then slips withdrawn. The second time, in early 2019 before Covid messed things up, the clerk used a laptop.
The time I got selected was a second degree murder charge. The judge first said that the case was expected to run 7 to 12 days and did anyone feel that getting selected would pose undue hardship. I can’t remember the exact number but only 3 or 4 hands went up. The one I do remember was a youngish man who said that he was the sole care-giver for his aging mother. The judge asked what he did for a living, and the answer was betting on the horses. I wanted to hear more, but the judge let him go with no further questions.
Neither of the lawyers, defense or crown (prosecution) asked any of us questions, but the judge did ask if we knew either the defendant or the victim. A woman whose name was drawn ahead of mine turned out to have been somehow involved in a previous stage of the case and so had heard evidence that had been discussed but would not be presented in the trial, so she was excused.
At the start of the trial, the judge did tell us that we could take notes if we wanted, but would have to surrender them at the end of the trial. He also told us that we were free to ask questions of the witnesses but had to present them to him first for approval.
Here in Canada it is a crime to discuss jury deliberations, so I can’t go into any of that. We weren’t able to agree on the verdict the first day so we were sequestered in a hotel overnight. I can say that the 12 of us probably only managed one good nights sleep. We did reach a verdict before noon the next day. Interestingly, right after delivering the verdict we were escorted from the courtroom and down into the basement where we were lead into a tunnel that came back up about half a block from the building. The case was not particularly newsworthy, but one of the court officers told us that this was standard practice for all murder trials.
My son lives there, I don’t know how else you would pronounce it, except everybody mostly just pronounces it “SLO”
Served on two juries, and I’ve been summoned to serve on a third this month. I have a few stories about the first two, but a question about this third time. I’ve literally been exposed, through a good friend, to a shocking incident where the police gave false testimony in order to present a case against the defendant whom they didn’t like. (The defendant was my friend, who had no reason to lie to me about what had happened.) This incident confirmed my suspicions about the police in general, that their testimony is highly suspect, and now I hold the firm belief that if a police officer swears to something in court, he is probably lying. Should I share this during voir dire next week?
It’s true that I don’t especially enjoy serving on juries, but it’s also true that I am highly skeptical about police testimony. Also related here is the fact that I turn 70 in a few months, and after 70, people can opt out of jury service due to “old age” where I live, so if I can delay my service this time by a few months, I’m free for life.
One anecdote: I was the alternate juror last time, which I wasn’t told during the trial itself. So I spent three days paying careful attention to the pettiest of cases ($30 stolen by an employee of a fast-food joint, or not stolen, which took up conservatively 150 manhours of Judge, lawyers, jurors, bailiffs, etc.) only to be told when we went into deliberations that my services were no longer required, so I never got to find out what the jury decided or even to voice my opinion of the facts.
I have only been called for jury duty once. This was pre-Covid, so things may have changed significantly since then. At that time, if you were called for jury duty, you served for an entire week, possibly more if you ended up on a long trial. You had to be at the courthouse early, and you sat in a room with all of the other potential jurors (about 150 people the week I was there). Everyone was given a number, and periodically they would call out about twice as many numbers as they needed for a 12 person jury. If you got called, you went into one of the jury selection rooms and the lawyers would take turns asking questions and scratching people off of the list until they whittled it down to 12 (I don’t remember if they kept a couple of alternates). If you were one of the ones that got scratched off the list then you went back to the main room. If you were one of the 12, then you went to one of the courtrooms and went through the trial. Most trials ended in a matter of hours. After your trial ended, you went back to the main room.
Since numbers were called at random, you could theoretically serve on a different trial every day, or you might not get called at all for the entire week. Out of our group, most served on 1 or 2 trials that week, but a handful served on 3 (I don’t think any were more than that), and quite a few did not serve on any trials.
I sat in the room and was bored out of my skull for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Occasionally they would play movies for us on a large screen TV. Cell phones and laptops were prohibited. We were allowed to bring books to read. On Thursday morning my number finally came up for jury selection, and I was one of the ones that ended up on the 12 that served for the trial. We took a break for lunch, and the trial was that afternoon.
The trial was for some street thug that was arrested on drug charges, and he was also charged with possession of a firearm by someone who is not allowed to possess a firearm (he was a convicted felon). The drug charge was a no-brainer since he was arrested with a crack pipe on the table in front of him when the police raided a known drug house. The firearm charge wasn’t so straightforward, since the gun had been found under his bed in a room that he shared with a roommate, and since it was a drug house there were all kinds of people coming and going and the gun could have belonged to any of them. We found him guilty on the drug charge, but since there was no way to know if the gun was really his or not (his roommate or anyone else in there at the time could have tossed it under the bed when the police raided the building), we had to find him not guilty on the gun charge.
Jury selection started around 9 or 10 am and was done before lunch. The trial lasted from about 1 pm to 3 pm. Deliberations took about an hour, and by the time the put us all back in the courtroom and read out the verdict it was close to 5 pm.
For someone who was supposedly a dangerous street thug, it was the wimpiest piece of crap pistol that I have ever seen. Even the prosecutor joked about it after the trial.
Since there were plenty of potential jurors left and few cases scheduled for Friday, the judge said that we had served all that was needed and that we were done for the week.
I was summoned 3 times - once in Florida, twice here in Merrylande. The Florida summons went nowhere - it was a long time ago, and I guess they just never got to my number.
First time here, I was on grand jury duty in the county - every other Wednesday for six months. (I remember they brought in some really good donuts for us!!) It was interesting but maddening because of one woman in particular who refused to accept that our job was not determination of guilt or innocence, but to decide whether the case should go to trial. Luckily, due to majority rule, her opinions could be ignored.
There was also a young woman on the panel who mostly slept the entire time. She was a waste, but in the grand scheme of things, she also had no influence on any votes. I seem to recall there were between 15-20 of us, so the couple of bad jurors were little more than annoyances.
The only really interesting case was a murder, and we saw some gruesome crime scene photos. But the accused was already incarcerated in another state for another violent crime, and while we voted to indict, chances are he’d never be back in state anyway.
Last summons, I went thru voir dire but didn’t get picked. I also didn’t get eliminated - they just needed 6 people and they got them all before they finished with the entire pool of candidates. I haven’t been called since.
One time I was in a jury pool with a well known personal injury lawyer. (Brown and Brown advertised heavily on St. Louis television; one of the brothers wore an eye-patch.) I learned who he was as the group waited to be escorted into a courtroom, and ended up sitting next to him.
He was soft-spoken and read a paperback book, “History of the Third Reich”. That could have been a jury-avoidance tactic, but my impression was that he was a war buff — many men are.
The defendant’s lawyer smiled and made an oblique reference to his identity, and asked if he could render an impartial verdict. He affirmed that he could, but he was one of the struck jurors. (Side note: in 2020 his brother, who wore the eye patch, jumped from a balcony of their 11th floor office. The firm released a statement saying he was sick and dying.)
I’ve been called 4 times I think. The first was federal court, and it was a police dog bite case. I was removed by peremptory challenge, I suspect because I’d been bitten by dogs multiple times when I was a paper boy.
The next three were state courts. The first I sat around in the morning and was never called for a jury so we were all dismissed. The second I was removed for cause because I have a close relative who was a prison guard and that’s what the case was about. The third I served - can’t remember the details of the case but it was a civil trail the plaintiff was pro se, and he really didn’t have much of a case and didn’t know how to present the limited offerings he had. It was a bit sad really. Our deliberations didn’t take long but I remember once that my fellow jurors were discussing something that judge had stricken from the record. I had to tell them that we couldn’t consider that as part of our deliberations and everyone quickly moved on. There was only a brief discussion about the details of the case, we all know the plaintiff hadn’t made his case but we did the formalities of talking through everything we needed to discuss.
I just finished jury duty on a five day trial in March. I learned everything I never wanted to know about pimping, pandering, and human trafficking, as well as prostitution. I’ll skip the details of the case and just share my obervation about jury selection.
I got called into a courtroom in the gallery. After the judge explained the case and the charges, and surveyed the room, all prospective jurors and alternates, as well as the gallery, a few people were excused for whatever reason for not being able to serve that week and the next week. Judge called three people from the gallery to replace three that were excused from the jury box and alternate row, and I was one of the three.
The judge and attorneys questioned each of us, and several more people from the jury box and alternates were excused, and I ended up seated on the jury, DAMMIT! I noticed that those that were most chatty during the attorney questioning tended to be excused. I was honest but fairly quiet and curt in my responses to the attorney questions - BIG MISTAKE! Since I did not say much, they did not find anything I said to be objectionable. If I had talked more, perhaps I would have said something one of the attorneys would have found problematic for their case. So, my advice, if you dont want to serve on a jury, just keep talking and let your opinions be knowns during the attorney questioning.
Also, a Dutch friend of mine explained that most of the world does not have jury trials like this - instead cases are argued by attorneys to a panel of judges and then the judges decide the outcome, rather than a jury of one’s peers. I can see some merit to that approach, in that no one really wants to serve on a jury, and that, well, have you noticed the, uh lack of quality lately in your peers?