I’ve never gotten to serve on a jury, but I’ve always wanted to. However, I’m fairly confident I’d never actually be selected. I work with databases, which means I’m supposed to be one of the methodical, analytical types, but I have a fine arts degree, which means I’m supposed to be one of the touchy-feely holistic-thinker types.
Plus the majority of my answers would be noncommittal and laced with caveats. “Do you support the death penalty?” - “I am skeptical of both its deterrent effect and the fairness of its actual implementation, but my mind is not yet completely made up.”
I’d probably be axed by both sides just for being too unpredictable.
Hijack question, as long as we’re talking about voir dire: If a defendant is representing himself (or herself), does he actually do the voir dire? How does the judge maintain control? “No, you can’t dismiss any more. No, you can’t have that other one back.”
Yes, the pro se defendant does his or her own, and the judge guides them more or less as you say. Generally the judge instructs them on how many preemptive strikes they have, gives them a seating chart to mark them on, and explains that the first ones not struck as the list progresses are the ones who make it. That applies to jurisdictions where the attorneys voir dire their own jurors; in federal court, the judge conducts the voir dire.
The list reminds me: Just becuse you arent a juror doesn’t mean you were struck. Sometimes you may not be a juror simply because you were at the end of the list. If you’re venireman number 2 and you didn’t get on the jury, you were definitely struck. If you were number 39 and didn’t make it, they probably had the jury filled before they got to you.
I served on a jury in an assault case in LA County. Something tells me my occupation as a marine biologist at the time did not provide much fodder for potential conflicts of interest.
A professor told me he had been summarily dismissed as soon as he told the lawyer that he was a math professor. He asked why, and the lawyer told him flat-out that mathematicians are too hard to sway with emotional appeals.
Another professor said the lawyer actually looked scared upon hearing that she was head of the criminal justice department at the local university.
My father, an engineer, has been on two juries that I recall.
I’ve been called 4 times and never sat on a jury. In my current profession, I’m a marketing manager. However, in my previous I was as a litigation consultant at a public acconting firm. To grossly oversimplify what we did, we would crunch the numbers for attorneys to measure financial impacts (mostly to support damage claims). I think that may be why I’ve been booted every time.
As a person in a technical or scientific career, I think this thread needs a control group. How often are people in other careers dismissed from juries?
How often are people in other careers dismissed from juries?