Stories About Jury Selection/Jury Service/Jury Experiences

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
121

I have mostly worked in commercial accounts, where the defendant is, typically, a large corporation. I can assure you that in these cases the insurance company hopes to avoid trial.

I’ve seen auto cases where the insurance company hopes that pushing to trial will encourage the plaintiff to accept a settlement. But it’s not what I’m usually looking at.

I do find that perspective interesting. I suspect it varies a lot regionally. There are counties that an insurance company thinks of as comfortable jurisdictions, and others that are referred to by the industry as “judicial hell holes”. Yes, that’s a term I’ve seen in industry publications, listing the five worst judicial hell holes, that are most at risk of returning nuclear verdicts.

122

I have heard that personal injury lawyers refer to some courthouses as cash registers.

123

Vegas is known for “jackpot justice!”

I have heard of judicial hellholes too. From my perspective, it just means places jurors are willing to be fair :slight_smile:

124

In my recent trial experience the bailiff was asleep and no one noticed until the judge asked him to do something, and got no response. The guard sitting behind the defendant scooted over on his wheeled chair and kicked the bailiff’s shoe, which was sticking out under the desk, and he started awake as audible giggles went around the courtroom. The judge repeated what he just asked of the bailiff and we proceeded on. I hope that guy got a talking-to by the judge at the next break.

But yeah, it’s difficult sometimes to keep the eyes open. I cannot imagine having to do that job every day.

125

Sometimes it’s the judge who can’t stay awake.

We had one visiting judge who struggled with this. One of the tasks for his assigned staff was to noisily drop a book or something if they noticed he was asleep. Hopefully before anyone else in the courtroom noticed.

He didn’t sit as a judge very often in our courts, I’m happy to say.

126

When I started practicing, we had a group of “old timer” judges who went to lunch at a restaurant across from the courthouse every afternoon and had a few drinks along with their lunch. They would either be sleepy or angry in the afternoon.

127

I was once called for jury duty in a case where alcohol was involved. All the prospective jurors filled out questionnaires, and one of the questions was whether we drank. I said no. When we got into the courtroom, the judge asked the prospective jurors about their answers. She asked why I didn’t drink, and I said it was because I don’t want anything to interfere with how my mind works.

Later it was the lawyers’ turn to question the jurors. One of them (I think it was the defense lawyer) started with me by saying, “So you say you have a problem with alcohol.” I answered, “That’s not what I said. I said I don’t drink.” This lawyer had me dismissed on a peremptory challenge. I suspect he was trying to get a rise out of me so he could have me dismissed for cause and not use up one of his peremptory challenges.

I was a little surprised that about half the prospective jurors didn’t drink alcohol. There were a lot of different reasons: health, religion, personal preference, and bad experiences with parents or partners who drank. I didn’t expect the proportion of non-drinkers to be so high.

128

Here is a story about my good friend. We met at work in the 90s and were both engineers. She was a brilliant engineer but didn’t really like the profession. She was called for jury duty on a child molestation case. She was raped by her uncle multiple times when she was a child. It wasn’t like the memory was repressed but she had compartmentalized it and when she was faced with being on the jury, it all flooded back. She asked to speak to the judge in private and explained the situation and of course she was excused.

She became pregnant soon after that and went on maternity leave a during the pregnancy and maternity leave and the next pregnancy and maternity leave, she went to law school at night and passed the bar exam. Within a few years she was the lead felony prosecutor for a county in Northern California putting away violent gangsters and child molesters.

129

LOL, I’ll bet the morning calendars were packed!

We as court staff were prohibited from consuming alcohol during regular business hours and I adhered to this prohibition assiduously, except once. It was a firing offense. One day, on a Friday afternoon with no cases on our calendar for the rest of the day and having just put to bed a long, difficult case that had been with us for a couple of years, I and the court reporter with whom I was assigned to a particular judge decided to go for a celebratory lunch at a special restaurant within walking distance of the courthouse. We each ordered a glass of wine.

Just as we were toasting our success for a job well done, in walked 3 of our judges – including the one to whom we were assigned. Caught red handed. Two just smiled and shook their heads, while our judge did an exaggerated face palm and said, “My staff. Naturally!”

We noticed they ordered wine with their lunches, too.

We enjoyed our lunch and our wine that day, but we never did it again. :cocktail: :grimacing:

130

Called for jury duty, got assigned to a case, went down for voir dire, and discovered that one of the attorneys for the defense was a friendly acquaintance; she and her husband frequented the same little neighborhood bar that my wife and I did. Our eyes met, we mimed laughter, and she gave me a thumbs-up and a conspiratorial wink.

It came my turn to speak, but before I could say anything, she let the judge know that we were acquainted. “How so?” asked the judge. She didn’t want to say, “We drink in the same bar,” so she said “We are members of the same social club.” I had to stifle laughter. The judge said, “Hmm, we’ll see,” and then bade me sit back down. He did not release me that day.

Or the next day, either, until the very end of the process. I had to sit through two days of voir dire, knowing full well I wouldn’t be selected. We all met up that following weekend and had a laugh, but she couldn’t explain the judge’s not wanting to let me go. The opposing council had no objections.

131

I’ve been summoned to jury duty three times. The first time was about 20 years ago. I happened to be unemployed at the time (I had been laid off when my company started letting go of non-billable positions in order to attract someone to acquire them). So I really didn’t mind. I sat in the courthouse, watched videos telling us our duties and how we were doing our civic duty (narrated by Raymond Burr, of all people). Finally after being there for a number of hours I was told that I would be on a case where a young person was charged with a moving violation. We waited longer and then the judge came out to greet us, and it started out something like this:

“Thank you all for coming here to do your duty. Now go home!”

It turned out that the main (or perhaps only?) witness had decided not to testify, and without that testimony the case was dismissed without prejudice. That was all the detail I knew.

The second time wasn’t very long ago, I think it was right before Covid, because I don’t recall having to wear a mask or anything. It was probably 2019. I went into a big room, filled out paperwork, and was given a number. I sat around for hours until being told there were no more cases for the day, I wasn’t needed, and I could go home because my duty was fulfilled.

The last time was a year or so ago, and like @Smapti I live in Washington, so all I had to do was call each day to see if I was needed, and I wasn’t. It sure beats sitting in a room all day doing nothing.

On a related note, while this didn’t involve jury duty one time I was almost a witness in a court case. A former boss of mine was being sued by my former employer. This was the case where my work was hacked and I was in the middle of it, and worked for months as a witness with the FBI, and so on. Anyway, both the plaintiff and defense wanted me to testify. I told both of them the exact same thing; I will testify if you want me to, but if you put me on the stand I will tell the complete unvarnished truth. I’ll tell only what I know, and not speculate on what I don’t know, and I really don’t know very much outside of technical details. I could tell that each one of them wanted me as an advocate, and I made it clear to both that I would be impartial. Ultimately neither one wanted me as a witness and I didn’t have to go.

I was the main person in the middle of everything; I realized we were being hacked, I took measures to stop it (unplugging routers and shutting things down), and I had many notes and grabbed a lot of logs for things I had passed onto the FBI as network admin. So you’d think I would be a pretty good witness, but obviously not what either side wanted. :roll_eyes:

(I’m glad; I didn’t want to do it anyway, but I really would if someone said they absolutely wanted me.)

Oh, and if you want to know what I actually thought, I’m totally sure my former boss was the hacker. He built the network by hand, he knew credentials to do it, and he even told us shortly before he was fired that he could easily hack the place if he wanted to. :man_shrugging:

132

Been called three times, never served. I do have a funny jury selection story from the last time, though:

Act I

The Judge: [Goes through a handful of situations that give you an automatic exemption, like being the sole proprietor of a small business, then asks if anyone has other personal circumstances that would make it a hardship for them to serve.]

Guy: I’m on probation.

Judge: What are you on probation for?

Guy: DUI.

Judge: How many DUIs?

Guy: Two.

Judge: That’s OK, two is a misdemeanor, so you can still serve.

[Guy looks pissed.]

Act II

Judge: Has anyone here been convicted of a felony?

[DUI guy raises hand]

Judge: Anything besides the DUIs?

DUI Guy: No.

Judge: Two, correct?

DUI Guy: Yes.

Judge: That’s still a misdemeanor.

[DUI Guy looks even more pissed, to the point where I wonder if he is seriously thinking of going out and getting a third DUI over lunch break]

Act III

Judge: The last few questions might sound a little funny, but they’re related to old laws that we still have on the books, so I have to ask them. First, has anyone been convicted of bootlegging within the last five years?

[Crickets, naturally]

Judge: Next, is anyone here a common gambler or a habitual drunkard?

[DUI Guy’s hand shoots up.]

Judge: Which one is it? Drunkard?

DUI Guy: Oh, yes, Your Honor!

Judge: You know, in thirty years I have never had anyone answer yes to that question … All right, if you want to be excused that badly, you can go.

[Exit DUI Guy, looking like he just won the lottery]

133

I’d like to see the legal definition of “common gambler”, and an explanation of how it differs from uncommon gamblers.

134

My first jury duty experience was about 40 years ago when I was right out of college. It was interesting because it was a mental competency case.

The defendant was an indigent street person who apparently got into an altercation in a public restroom. But that’s not what we were empaneled to decide. For his criminal trial he wanted to defend himself. Problem was the judge felt he was a little too “off” mentally to be his own attorney. So a mental competency trial was held to decide if he could defend himself.

The trial was only supposed to last about 4 days. However the same judge was also hearing preliminary arguments for a much more spectacular case (I forget which one) which kept interrupting or postponing our case, causing it to drag into a second week.

The defendant was allowed to represent himself in this competency case with the assistance of a court appointed lawyer (which is exactly what he wanted to do in his criminal trial). Anyway, he was an interesting character with a somewhat skewed grasp of reality. He seemed to function in society adequately but could be belligerent when provoked. To demonstrate his mental competency and how smart he was he described two “inventions” he had come up with. One was some sort of system to spot stolen cars using a complicated system of numbered cards displayed on the driver’s door which I never could figure out.

His second “invention” was fireproof paper. He brought a sample to court consisting of a few squares of toilet paper that he had treated with a secret chemical to make fireproof. Since he had been in the county lockup for an extended period I suspect that the secret chemical was actually urine. Anyway, he produced a book of matches and attempted to light the paper. This is when the judge urgently intervened and requested a bailiff have a fire extinguisher at the ready. The demonstration continued with mixed results (the extinguisher was not needed after all).

Anyway, other that being slightly non-neuro normative we decided he was competent to stand trial and represent himself with a lawyer assisting. So he had a trial to determine if he was competent to stand trial. I never found out how his criminal case turned out. He was a unique individual with a creative mind but a skewed view of the world who was mostly harmless. I hope he had a happy life.

135

I was called once for a murder trial estimated to last three weeks. There were roughly 120 potential jurors. My few-months-past-my-wedding honeymoon was scheduled 3.5 weeks later. The judge told me not to worry. I thought I was done and would be dismissed immediately but he ordered me to report back the next day. The next day, all the remaining jurors were given numbers when we would do our voir dire. I was originally in the middle of the distribution. The judge called me and three or four others out and renumbered us to the end of the list. The jury was full before they ever got to any of us but we all had to sit there through everyone’s voir dire. We couldn’t hear the questions or answers because they were done in the front of a large courtroom with a white noise generator masking the discussion. At least I got to read my book.

I was also called for a drunk driving trial once and the human drama in the cheap seats was memorable. Awaiting voir dire, a younger guy - roughly 30 - sat next to me. He kept going on about how he was an important private equity manager who couldn’t miss work for jury duty. He had left his job as a management consultant to start a private equity fund with his friend and they had just raised a lot of money - $6 million. This is peanuts in the private equity world. He and his buddy were looking at splitting $120k per year less their expenses until they actually had a successful deal or two. Preschool teachers make more in my neck of the woods. I was not interested. He turned his attention to a young lady who sat down next to him and started the self important spiel over. She was also uninterested, so he changed the topic of conversation to the defendant who was a Hispanic man and possibly an immigrant. PE Bro started saying horrifyingly casually racist things. Young lady seemed mortified. I live in one of the most racially diverse places in the country and casual racism is not accepted here but she just froze. We had all been asked to remain seated during voir dire, so I think she felt trapped, as was I.

The judge was asking us one by one to stand and answer questions from counsel based on our questionnaires. Defense counsel had no questions for me. The prosecutor had some questions about my work with a law enforcement agency and my work on the defense side. He didn’t like what he heard and I was dismissed. PE Bro was up next as I was gathering my things. He tried to assert that his business would suffer if he wasn’t there to run it. Under oath, he admitted he had no meetings on his calendar for the next few days and he had no time sensitive work to do. Serving would have no impact on his pay. He was told to stay. He was silently stewing. He would have voted to convict the driver before opening arguments so he could get home and watch Fox news if that had been an option. I hoped the young lady next to him wouldn’t get stuck on a jury with him but I slipped out before her questioning began.

I’m sorry you had that experience because I would imagine it comes with a fair amount of guilt and regret even as you were trying and did do everything right. When people try to avoid jury duty, they probably aren’t thinking about an outcome like yours but it is way worse than a few hard days scheduling child care or having to shut the convenience store down for a day.

You should truthfully answer the questions that are asked. If this information is pertinent to one of the questions asked, you should say it. If not, you don’t have to volunteer it. However, I’d be very surprised if no one asked a question that made this answer pertinent.

It might also be a case of you being good enough. They have a finite number of peremptory strikes and you just weren’t objectionable enough to either side to use on up.

My cousin has lived there since she was a kid more than 50 years ago and calls it San Pee-dro.

Maybe you looked like a bunch of softies and the prosecutor agreed to a plea for time served.

136

That’s exactly what I was talking about when I said even the locals get it wrong.

137

Could be; although my rather faint memory of the long ago event is whispering that it was the judge who made the joke about us looking like a hanging jury.

138

Drove all the way up from San Pee-dro,
for fucking corn dogs
We’d go drink and pogo

139

I’m not sure what you mean about “even the locals get it wrong” . Seems like the way the people who live there pronounce it is the right way, just like I can’t mispronounce my own name .

140

Yeah, this is what the natives call it, if not, simply “Peedro.”

No complaints about San Rafael being called San Rafell? I grew up in SoCal, but I remember the Angela Davis/Soledad brothers trial when I was just out of high school where I learned how it was said “up there.”