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Jury Duty - Care to Share Your Experience?

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I work 8 hrs/day M-F. Holidays are for Vegas. Last fall I had trips planned for Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving and NYE. Mid-October I received a letter stating I was on-call for federal jury duty for November and December. I was supposed to call every Friday evening to find out if I needed to report the following week. Long story short, I reported 2nd week of December, was selected and served for a two day trial.
 
Richard Alpert said:
I have been "on call" for five separate months since my college years--about 4 or 5 years in between each cycle of service.
When you get your letter stating what month you're "on" you get a phone number to call each night or so for instructions on if/when you have to report.

I was only called in for jury selection once for each of the first three months. All three were for DUI cases.
(My last two months of service I didn't have to come in at all. All the cases were settled out of court or were rescheduled.)

I served on one jury. It was very interesting to see the process as a citizen taxpayer.
It was a lot different than L.A. Law and Law & Order. Although one of the lawyers did look a lot like Harry Hamlin.
It wasn't like Night Court, although the judge appeared to have a good sense of humor--no Bull.
It wasn't Twelve Angry Men by any means either. One man was really angry that he had to stay, but he ended up being the one that made deciding the verdict take so long...

The toughest part was having to stay in the jury room for lunch and breaks.
You could bring a book to read, but that was it. Glad it was just a one-day trial.

It was a day off for me anyway. Plus I got to keep my $4.00 mileage check. :thumbsup:

Funny part is my three siblings of similar age have never been summoned for service.
My parents have each only been called once in their lives, both of them in the last couple of years.

Maybe I'm extremely lucky that my juror number keeps coming up.
Maybe my county just really likes me! :D

RICHARD
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You and Sally Field!
 
MikeOPensacola said:
Question for the attorneys here on VMB. Is it a defendant's right to choose a bench trial at both the federal and state level for criminal charges? Thx.

:peace: :beer:
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Yes.

Also - random note - if you want to get out of jury duty, act really enthusiastic about being on the jury. Talk about how excited you are to do your civic duty. Nothing scares the shit out of lawyers more than a crazy person who's enthusiastic about hearing a trial.
 
Nevyn said:
There are a lot of people out there who would feel that important, and absolutely aren't

But there is no great shortage, I would expect, of people for whom an 8 week work interruption would be a big problem. Surgeons, for example. Also caregivers (for special needs children or the elderly).

Then a bunch of others who would always get dismissed anyway (lawyers).

There are also any number of people (for example, sole proprietors/consultants) who can't realistically walk on their contracts or replace their work for a big gap.
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I'm a sole proprietor and yes it would take a big hit on my bankroll to not get paid for 1 month, 2 months.
 
I dreaded being called for jury duty because I needed to work to make ends meet. The jury pay isn't gonna cut it.

Once I retire I would gladly serve if they want me. Hell, I would even sub for someone who works for a living, hopefully he'll do the same for someone else when he retires.
 
I would love to sit on a jury, but I always get bumped bc nobody wants another attorney on their jury. Once, I didn't even make it into the courtroom bc I knew both of the lawyers personally and one of them claimed conflict. Another time, I was on the jury list for my own jury pool, so they just canceled me. I think it would be fascinating
 
I've been a registered voter ever since I was 18. (I squeaked by the 26th. Amendment.) However, I was not summoned until just a few years ago, and again soon after that. I have friends who seem to get summoned all of the time.

Once I was summoned when I had a trip planned. I was afraid they would be hard-line but they just told me to fill out the form requesting a different date and not worry about it.
 
I've been summoned three times in my eligible life. Once was a Federal Jury...was not selected because I knew one of the attorneys involved. Once on a County General Sessions case....served on a jury hearing an accident/personal injury case for one day. Most recently, last year I was chosen in a pool of several prospective jurors to be available on a local Grand Jury as alternates and did sit in for about three hours to hear and decide if cases were worthy of going to trial.

In my area, you can only be summoned to serve once every ten years in local court situations. Federal Court is totally independent of the time frame of the ten years however.

Most interesting case that I heard on my Grand Jury service was regarding a woman who had engaged a man as a home improvement contractor. He apparently did not complete the job or the job was unsatisfactory to the woman. She found him sitting on a barstool in a bar. A discussion ensued and she knocked the contractor off of said barstool. When he fell to the floor, his prosthetic leg came off and the woman began beating him with his own leg! The court case was centered around the contractor pressing charges against the woman for damages to his leg and for medical expenses related to him breaking his hip in the fall. True story!

Alright, I'll say it before @Richard Alpert does: it was a case of "legged and dangerous". Or, the woman got a leg up on him. Or, assault with a deadly limb.
 
When my voting registration reflected "GOP", I got called for jury duty thrice.

1. Armed Robbery: masked guy walks into a seven-eleven and robs it. How-ev-ah, he first went into the store to check things out. He steps back outside, steps just to the side of the door, and puts on a mask and goes back in. How do we know this? All caught on video from above the outside of the door. We go to deliberate, and not five minutes later, we get called back into court as the defendant opted to plead.

2. Some flavor of Attempted murder: One guy stabs another with a knife during a fight. What are we fighting over? A stripper. The perpetrator was dating her and the ex showed up looking for a scrap. Now, the injuries to the victim were such that first aid - no stitches - took care of everything. The weapon? One of these tiny, cheap knives...no handle, just an all metal thing that probably was designed to go on a key chain. I've gotten worse cuts just working and if ever there was a "that's not a knife" moment, this would be it. But, we all have to play along with the murder charge which we deliberated down to some sort of assault thing. Unfortunately, the perpetrator had other convictions before, so this one, although not murder, did land him in prison for a long time. I'm sure there are worse altercations in Tampa every day that never get reported.

3. Murder: Son - on house arrest, ankle monitoring - kills his dad (stabbed) fighting over a bag of weed. Nothing entertaining here...except...the witness parade. Every one of the witnesses were cons and almost half had perjury charges at some point in the past. Guilty.

It was shortly thereafter that I switched my voter registration from GOP to "No Party Affiliation". Haven't heard from the Hillsborough County Court since.

Jury duty was never a hardship for me. In truth, I liked the idea of something different, getting out of the office for a while. I never quite got my noodle around those who - other than the ones who are honest-to-god negatively financially impacted - loathe the idea of jury duty. It's just a couple of days, and as far as "missing work" goes, no...no...I wouldn't say I "missed" it. :nono:
 
dean, it is because so many Americans feel so entitled. I want ... give me ... I won't. Then again, since most never show up to vote ...
 
I get a notice about every 7 years but have only made it into a courtroom once. The one time I got in the courtroom during questioning by the lawyers I thought the assistant DA looked familiar and sure enough we had went to school together so I was out. I have gotten notices twice when i have had trips to Vegas planned.

Mark
 
I do not know if people just hate doing jury duty or they hate the fact that the system for calling people seems so unfair. I have been called five times in the last twenty years. I served on a jury twice, 3 days and two weeks.
It seems that some people never get called. I think I have done my fair share. It is time for others to be called. With all the new names on the voter rolls, driver license rolls, etc., they should be calling more people who have never been called. If I have to do my civic duty, I expect others to do the same. The burden should be shared equally.
 
Just served 4 days on jury duty in January. Our county does not use voter rolls for jury selection purposes, instead they use the state driver license database. You only have to serve once every three years. So if you're called within that three year period you will be excused from serving.

Since I worked in law enforcement I never get selected for the actual jury. I do, however, get to participate in the jury panel where the jury selection process plays out in the court room. The jury panel typically consists of 35 people of which 14 are selected for the jury. I was on 4 jury panels in the 4 days the jury pool was needed. The last one was the most interesting.

The defendant was charged with resisting arrest & terrorist threats. I was that guy who had to stand up (4 times) and profess my friendship with numerous law enforcement personnel who would be testifying in this trial. Needless to say - I did not get selected for the jury. The next day I saw a person who was selected for that trial and asked him what was going on with the trial. He stated the judge dismissed the jury as there would be no trial but the judge was not at liberty to discuss the reason for the dismissal.

That night the local news reported this defendant smuggled into the court room a "sharp metal object" and was going to stab the deputy in the eye, take his gun and shoot up the court room. For some reason he did not carry out this plan and was caught after the jury was dismissed. The news reported the person shared his story with another inmate and that person provided that information to the proper authorities which got him caught. One never knows how close to chaos one is.

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2017/01/inmate_smuggled_weapon_into_da.html
 
martinr said:
Most interesting case that I heard on my Grand Jury service was regarding a woman who had engaged a man as a home improvement contractor. He apparently did not complete the job or the job was unsatisfactory to the woman. She found him sitting on a barstool in a bar. A discussion ensued and she knocked the contractor off of said barstool. When he fell to the floor, his prosthetic leg came off and the woman began beating him with his own leg! The court case was centered around the contractor pressing charges against the woman for damages to his leg and for medical expenses related to him breaking his hip in the fall. True story!

Alright, I'll say it before @Richard Alpert does: it was a case of "legged and dangerous". Or, the woman got a leg up on him. Or, assault with a deadly limb.
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Wow! She really wasn't gonna let him walk away from the job!
 
Living in a small town area we normally do know someone who is related to the case in some manner. If they are serious enough it would have gone to a different county for the trial.

I believe I have been called 3 times I believe. I would get my daily pay from work & employer would get my check from the court. So for me financially it would be a non-event. First case was a fall by a delivery person. Actually at my weekend restaurant job. Obviously that was a fast exit. Second one was a drunk driver (adjoining county) who killed 4 teens in a head-on collision. I knew one of the deceased - he had played for several years on my sons hockey team & I often drove him to games etc. The judge asked me if I could be impartial. I was honest & said I wanted to believe I could be, but I could not say 100%. The last was more recently - only one time during my scheduled month did I have to go in - my husband is in the corrections field and after about 20 other rounds of questions we had to answer they asked if any family members were in law-enforcement. About 4 of us were let go due to that. Don't even remember that case. Husband gets dismissed because of his job every time & he would LOVE to serve. It's a shame for him.
 
WichitaMuskie said:
I'm not trying to avoid jury duty, personally. I'm interested in why people would be (and would want to be) excused. Age, disabilities, etc. make sense. "I'm just too darn important at work" should = "Welcome to the jury!"
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Been called 2x the past 4 years. The 2nd time was last year....I was really nervous and its just not my thing. I understand what it is doing, but Im not put here to judge. The last case was some kind of battery charge if I remember. Im a computer/business guy. Not a lawyer or judge. Can you not respect that? Whoever wishes to partake, then by all means go head.

Luckly I was never called either time. Last year I ignored the first post card telling me to register, and received a second one. Never did register, only called in to see if I was summoned that week and never was
 
One of our judges used to always give a speech congratulating the prospective jurors since they had the opportunity to perform a task once reserved for kings: deciding a man's fate. It kind of made the people feel less bad about spending their day in jury selection. Then, when people got selected, they'd be bummed again. Almost every jury that I've ever had, by the end of things, seems like they didn't think it was a horrible experience. On a couple longer trials, I've noticed what seems like genuine friendships form. Kinda neat.
 
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