Jury Duty

[dontpanicbobby]

On April 29th, 2021
Hope I don't get another murder.

 

[Unforgiven]

On April 29th, 2021
Hope I don't get another murder.

When they ask if there is any reason you are unable to serve on the jury just respond "I bet he's as guilty as that last guy" and call it a day.

 

[rootabaga]

With all due respect and seriousness, serving on a jury is one of those “civic responsibilities” everyone seems to detest but in all reality, consider that you are wrongly charged with a crime. Who would you want sitting on the jury? Fellow people such as yourself, or a bunch of people who couldn’t come up with an excuse or really have nothing else going on in their lives so they see it as a big deal?
Myself, I’d prefer a balanced jury that includes some regular hard-working folks that are disgruntled at serving, but believe in the system enough that they make the sacrifice to ensure I get a fair trial.

That said, if you really don’t want to be there, all you need to say during voir dire is that you don’t believe in the jury system and thus don’t think you can be fair and impartial because you don’t believe in it. Throw in some stuff about crooked cops and social injustice and it’s crazy unlikely you’d ever be empaneled.

Good on you for serving, dpb. I hope you don’t get another murder as well. That would be tough to sit through.

 

[sullencab]

When they ask if there is any reason you are unable to serve on the jury just respond "I bet he's as guilty as that last guy" and call it a day.

LOL, that's the way to do it!

 

[mikedt]

I was summonsed for two weeks of jury service in the early 90s. One trial was a pervert boy scout leader, so it was quite heavy going. In the UK, if one is called to serve on a jury, you pretty much have to do it, unless you have some legal exemption.

 

[Milo Williamson]

Yeah I oped out a few times, due to my handicap, my mother just really went through a few herself, they where murder cases.

 

[no one]

This one time, I was summoned to jury duty, then some stuff happened....yada, yada, yada, anyway, I no longer exist in their database.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

When I emailed them my re-confirmation they told me I wasn't needed. I'm guessing they are no longer using the jury pool room due to the pandemic so instead of having an excess of candidates they go for the bare minimum.

I actually enjoy jury duty, especially if I catch a case.

 

[Hadron]

My understanding, from friends and family in the States, is that it's much easier to skip jury duty in the US. I never felt comfortable when told how easy it was for professionals to decline though, since it seemed to me (and to my friends who were using these excuses) that this must skew the composition of juries.

In the UK you essentially can't refuse unless you are ineligible in the first place, but you can defer if there is a good reason why you cannot do the dates originally assigned. They then ask you to provide a list of all other dates you cannot do in the following year, and then assign you a new date which you cannot defer (at least not without a hospital confirming that you are undergoing emergency surgery or similar).

I've only been summoned once, which I deferred on the grounds that I was going to be 8 times zones away at the time, with bookings already made. They gave me a new date 6 months later, but a week before I was due they phoned me to say that they actually had more jurors booked than they needed for that fortnight and gave me the option of stepping down. I did consider doing it anyway, both as a civic duty and because it would be a different experience (albeit also a responsibility I expected to be uncomfortable), but of course there were other conflicting responsibilities that would be better served if I took them up on the offer and stepped down.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

I always thought my court system asked more people than they needed to serve on jury duty.

 

[joe71]

I had jury duty maybe five years ago. First day I go to the court house to report in there had to have been 300 people there .
After waiting for two or three hours I was told to go to different jury selection area. An hour later back to the first area.
An hour later we were given an hour for lunch.
After lunch waited another hour
After an hour, okay if we haven't called you, your free to go home.
Me
Court person, report back here tomorrow by 8 am.
Me

Day two.
All morning shifting around, then lunch. Then when the selection process got started. 50-100 us got sent to different court rooms.
Then people were eliminated , sent back to the jury pool area or elsewhere. End of day 2 comes,
Instructed to return tomorrow.

Day #3 9am am comes I am among 25-30 potential jurists,
By 10am I have been selected as finalists
by 11:45am I have been selected.
Day#3 ended with legal mumbo jumbo as the case was explain.
Day#4 the defense makes their opening statement. It's a civic case involving gas stations and convenient stores. Defense comes out with both guns blazing , sprouting off all the reason plaintiff is at fault, how the plaintiff attempted to double cross, back out, rob their clients of potentially of millions of dollars.
Then came the ultimate WTF moment.
The lead defense lawyer starts in on how they are missing documents, but can still prove that a contract was entered into by both parties.
When question by the judge about the alleged missing paper work, the lawyer informed her that half of the documents had been transferred from the original clerks/city hall building to a temporary building because the original city hall clerks office, court house etc was being temporarily shut down for security or maintenance upgrades.
Judge ask the lawyer so you can get the documents from the temporarily site??
Lawyer then explained that the temporary building had caught on fire and all the documents from the original court house that had been transferred over had been lost
When asked about computer back ups the lawyer said they hadn't been back up.
To complicate things other paperwork had gone missing, then the lawyer in double talk kind of threw his client under the bus by telling us they hadn't filed certain paper work with courts, got stuff notorized.
But then adds he can absolutely prove his client is in the right
When the judge ask if he could produced any paperwork or evidence supporting his client?
The lawyer response was they were currently tracking down the missing documents.
Judge, then ask if the defense had an rough idea of where the missing documents were and how soon they could get them.
The lawyer response was we have no idea, they had people searching for them.
Once again the lawyer assure us that those documents were absolutely not necessary to prove their case
After that statement, the members of the jury and the plaintiff and their lawyers were all
The judge was .
By this time we had listening to the defense lawyer ramble on for almost three hours.
The judge demised us for an early lunch.
To be continued ( if you're really interested)

 

[MoodyBlues]

When I was working, I dreaded seeing a jury duty summons; I knew it would have disastrous results at work if I got stuck on a jury for weeks or months. But I'd go to the courthouse at the appointed time, answer all the questions honestly and, somehow, always managed to be excused. Like the time a wealthy couple's divorce case was the issue, and the attorneys said the husband was an avid hunter. They LITERALLY asked if there were any "card-carrying members of Peta" among the jury pool, and I practically JUMPED UP to show them my Peta card! Gone!!

But I always wanted to serve on a jury. I feel very strongly about certain things, like voting, that people in other places don't even have the opportunity to do. Jury duty is one of them. I thought it would be interesting, kind of fun, and put me to the test in terms of being impartial. It never happened.

For the last several years, since the brain tumor that caused me to stop working, every time I've received a summons I filled out my portion, had my doctor(s) fill out their portion(s), and sent in an excuse request, which was always granted. Finally, a year ago January (2020), I filed for a permanent excuse. It finally dawned on me that things are not going to get better, so why keep bothering with the hassle of an annual excuse request? A few days ago I received a permanent excuse:

I didn't realize until I was posting that the letter was folded; the rest just goes on to say that if I should ever receive a summons, just submit a copy of the letter and that will take care of it.

Now that it's a done deal, you might not believe this, but I'm not jumping up and down for joy. I wanted to serve. Oh well.

 

[Hadron]

I had jury duty maybe five years ago. First day I go to the court house to report in there had to have been 300 people there .
After waiting for two or three hours I was told to go to different jury selection area. An hour later back to the first area.
An hour later we were given an hour for lunch.
After lunch waited another hour
After an hour, okay if we haven't called you, your free to go home.
Me
Court person, report back here tomorrow by 8 am.
Me

Day two.
All morning shifting around, then lunch. Then when the selection process got started. 50-100 us got sent to different court rooms.
Then people were eliminated , sent back to the jury pool area or elsewhere. End of day 2 comes,
Instructed to return tomorrow.

Day #3 9am am comes I am among 25-30 potential jurists,
By 10am I have been selected as finalists
by 11:45am I have been selected.
Day#3 ended with legal mumbo jumbo as the case was explain.
Day#4 the defense makes their opening statement. It's a civic case involving gas stations and convenient stores. Defense comes out with both guns blazing , sprouting off all the reason plaintiff is at fault, how the plaintiff attempted to double cross, back out, rob their clients of potentially of millions of dollars.
Then came the ultimate WTF moment.
The lead defense lawyer starts in on how they are missing documents, but can still prove that a contract was entered into by both parties.
When question by the judge about the alleged missing paper work, the lawyer informed her that half of the documents had been transferred from the original clerks/city hall building to a temporary building because the original city hall clerks office, court house etc was being temporarily shut down for security or maintenance upgrades.
Judge ask the lawyer so you can get the documents from the temporarily site??
Lawyer then explained that the temporary building had caught on fire and all the documents from the original court house that had been transferred over had been lost
When asked about computer back ups the lawyer said they hadn't been back up.
To complicate things other paperwork had gone missing, then the lawyer in double talk kind of threw his client under the bus by telling us they hadn't filed certain paper work with courts, got stuff notorized.
But then adds he can absolutely prove his client is in the right
When the judge ask if he could produced any paperwork or evidence supporting his client?
The lawyer response was they were currently tracking down the missing documents.
Judge, then ask if the defense had an rough idea of where the missing documents were and how soon they could get them.
The lawyer response was we have no idea, they had people searching for them.
Once again the lawyer assure us that those documents were absolutely not necessary to prove their case
After that statement, the members of the jury and the plaintiff and their lawyers were all
The judge was .
By this time we had listening to the defense lawyer ramble on for almost three hours.
The judge demised us for an early lunch.
To be continued ( if you're really interested)

I'll bet that lawyer came to school every day claiming that their dog had eaten their homework once more but honestly they can still prove that their report deserved an A...