Jury Duty
 

Do you guys just ditch it? I haven't ever been summoned, and one finally showed up in the mail last week.

Do people really get fined for not going? I know so many people who just ignore it.

The government is charging someone with a crime, and they need your consent to strip away his/her rights and freedom.

Fully Informed Jury Association

Go educate yourself and be a part of the American balance of powers.


EDIT: I like your post count, 666 :)

Yikes, I better post to change that post count.

I'm not really to sure about the ramifications of not going, but why not just go?

Be a good citizen and show up for your jury duty. Or go live in a cave in Afghanistan.

I can tell you from experience, you don't want that. Although you are actually lucky to find a cave, "under the stars" isn't that fun in a combat zone.

if you're ever wrongfully convicted of a crime, do you want only the rejects on your jury, or do you want educated indivuduals such as yourself there to make important decisions about your future?

y8's has it right.... do your civic duty and go

that said, jury duty in oakland, ca was a crazy thing. I got called once and got to the last round before being dismissed.

it was for a double murder trial with special circumstances--meaning the jury can pick between life in prison or the death penalty.

fucked up.

I've only been summoned once, and was dismissed pretty early on. Trial was a dude accused of raping a 12 year old. Fucked up.

always go to jury duty because you always want to make millions on the book deal.

it's fucked up that i've be summoned twice and had to go even though they can't legally pick me because my grandfather and uncle both work in the court house so there's potentially a conflict of interest.....yet i still have to show up.

one of them was some guy accused of raping some girl at a mcdonalds.....

Summoned twice by the age of 21, both times getting out of it due to me being in school. Haven't been summoned for the three years since then though.

I've only ever been summoned once, in north San Diego county.

First, you sit in a large room with a whole bunch of other people, and they take roll. There were several hundred folks the day I was there. A judge came in and greeted us all with a short motivational speech about what an awesome thing the American court system is, after which we watched a short video about the responsibility we had upholding the foundations of due process and such.

Then you just sit there, and wait to be called.

Bring a book. A good one.

Throughout the course of the day, as new trials are about to begin, they come in and call large groups of people to then go the the courtroom, maybe 30-40 at a time. My group was called about two hours after lunch. You go to a courtroom, and they sort you out. 12 people are chosen as the primaries and go to the jury box. The rest go to the seats behind the bar. I was #8 out of the 12.

Then you are given a questionnaire. It was handed to us on sheets of paper, and we answered it verbally to the judge. At that point, council begin asking specific questions of prospective jurors, and dismissing people either foe specific causes or for no cause at all (they have a finite number of the latter).

My case was a young man of Mexican origin (who did not speak much English and was a resident alien) charged with a sexual offense against a child. The prosecuting attorney dismissed me during the first round without asking any questions, presumably because I was either not as white as she'd have liked, or not as married as she'd have liked, or both. Which is ironic, as if the allegations against the dude were in any way remotely true, I'd have probably been among the ones recommending capital punishment. (Not that we have the death penalty in San Diego, but you get my drift.)


Seriously, though. I don't recommend skipping out. Putting aside all the talk about civic duty and such, it's worth it just to get a glimpse of how the court system works.

I got summoned before I was even 18. I recieved the letter a few weeks before my 18th birthday, the date was a couple of days after. Thought that was really wierd.

In CA they pull it from voter registration and SSS. I am registered up north with SSS, down south to vote. I got jury duty in both places before I was 20.

In SLO County, you actually call the night before and an automated machine tells you whether they need you or not. I called each night, they didn't need me, I didn't go, until I called on Wednesday and they said thanks for your service. :bigtu:

42 years old. Never been called for jury duty. I say it's because I don't register to vote. People disagree with me on this saying that it isn't tied to voter registration here, but my "not registered-never been called to jury duty" record seems to stand for itself. My wife is registered to vote and has been called 2-3 times in the 11 years that we have been married.

I don't buy it. I never registered to vote in CA, and that's the only place I got summoned. Never updated SSS after I left FL either.

What I've heard (and it seems plausible) is that a lot of places are pulling their lists from the drivers license registration records nowadays, as it's a much more complete database. Probably wouldn't work in Manhattan, but everywhere else, pretty much everybody has a drivers license.

I don't know. Maybe I've just been lucky.

I honestly don't see why Jury Duty has got such a bad rap, honestly. I mean, worst case scenario is that have to listen to a couple of overpaid cocksuckers duke it out for a while and then you get to vote whether or not to ban someone from life. It's like being a moderator, only with free food. :D

I think it varies from state to state. I know a few states pull from the voting and others pull from the drivers license registration. I think he states varies to get the best pull. Like you said in places like Manhattan were not everyone has a license it won't work as well. Compared to somewhere like Kansas were you pretty much fucked if you don't have a car.

I've been called to "regular" jury duty twice (42 years old). First case was against a kid who was drunk as hell and driving around. We let him go because the majority in the jury thought it was somehow mean to make him pay for it. I hope he runs over their kids sometime and they get to scrape up the brains.

The second I got out of because I stood up and said there was no way I would believe the defendant over the cops. I think the defense att threw me out.

Right now I am in the county grand jury (possibly for the next two years). We meet every month for a day and decide on the merits of around 150-200 cases. Most of the time it is a cop coming in and reading a very short synopsis of 10 cases of "look how damn stupid people are". I could tell you some pretty wild stories and I know where most of the crack houses are in my local area now. From time to time we get some pretty vicious and screwed up cases but most are simple drug possession (crack) or large amounts of pot. After I serve my 12 to 24 months of grand jury I get exempted from jury duty for the next 5 years so I at least have that going for me.

I've been called three times. Once, the defendant was a no show. And the other two, I knew the defendant. They were customers where I worked at the time. So needless to say, I got to go home. :)
Stephanie

Just did my service yesterday.....first time actually being picked and serving on a jury. I've had several notifications, but never got further than the exemption phase. Didn't want anything to do with this at first, and had always felt it was a waste of my time.
After this experience, and being in the position of putting something to rest that effects people's lives, I would do it again.
God forbid I should ever need a jury trial, and have to rely on someone else with the mindset I used have about jury selection. ;)

I was summoned.

I didn't get the letter until 2 months later when I came back to the states. I never replied and neglected to follow up. If I was in town, I'm sure I would have gone.

They never said anything. Queue US marshalls at my door.

If I were on trial, I would want jurors that are smart, unbiased, and understand that sometimes leo's, victims, and witness sometimes lie and embellish.

That is definitely major criteria that I consider when I am deciding who I want to kick. I practice criminal defense exclusively, and have picked probably 50 juries.

It is so fucking exciting it is ridiculous! Depending on the judge it is a fantastic and fair system that keeps government and police in check.

Overpaid? Obviously you have not heard of the enormous salaries of Assistant State Attorneys (District Attorneys) and Assistant Public Defenders (Public Pretenders). Odds are they are the attorneys trying the case.

In Florida you could certainly still get picked. I have even picked a felony circuit criminal clerk that just happened to be in the pool.



Seriously, it really is a shitty thing to not show or to intentionally get kicked just because you have more important things to do. You may be the person that can explain the true guilt or innocence of another human to the other jurors. Juries get it wrong sometimes. Innocent people get convicted and guilty people get off. Probably over 99% of cases are resolved before trial, so the ones that actually go are usually pretty fucking important to someone.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but I was actually serious. It's not "Law & Order" every day, but even though I'm not a big idealist (con law can suck my balls) I really do find the criminal court system interesting.


Ok, so I'm jumping the gun on that one. But give it time. How many folks working for the DA or the public defenders office do you know who actually intend to make a career out of it? They're there because they didn't go to a top 14 school, and probably weren't in the upper 10% of their class, so they're doing time until they can make it into a private firm doing research 70 hours a week, pay off the loan, and start making money. I know, $100k doesn't sound like much if all your friends and co-workers came from Columbia or Duke, but to most folks it falls into the "overpaid" category for someone in their early 30s.

I'm registered to vote in SLO county, SSS in Santa Clara county, DL in Santa Clara county. Been called once in each county.

Never been called. Would love to go though and help someone avoid a harsh sentence.

I was being serious, but maybe a little too over dramatic. It is very exiting. The only boring time is spent in my office (maybe 2 full days a month), and even that is not that bad.

Did you ever start law school? I remember you talking about it a while ago. Since you are referring to it as 'conlaw' I am going to guess that is a 'yes.'


You are probably right about how most start off as asa's and pd's. Maybe 10% become lifers and stay. 80% of the rest (including state attorneys) go private criminal defense. Working 70hrs a week grinding is not practicing law. I would be embarrassed to switch to that.:facepalm: How sad for them.

In that case I have to ask what field you're in, and where do I sign up?


Depends on how you define "start" I suppose. The conventional answer would be no. After a rather lengthy series of misadventures involving the cross-country trip, the would-be roommates from hell, some serious soul searching, and a semi-disabling orthopedic injury, I decided not to matriculate. So after several months of down time I'm back to building radio stations at this point, though as an independent tool-for-hire and not with Harris directly. In NYC at the moment getting ready to move WCBS-FM into their new place downtown.


Well, for some folks it seems that biglaw is where it's at, and that's pretty much how things are at that level. Example: A friend of mine works for Sidley Austin here in the city. He graduated a couple of years ago from Fordham (having taken several years off between undergrad and law school) and is still doing nothing but research and contracts 25 hours a day. I think he said that he actually got to see the inside of a courtroom a few months ago. But from his perspective, this is the path to a richer future, so he does the time. He's at the point where the occasional >$200k offer is starting to come through, and is trying to convince his fiancee that leaving NYC for someplace like Dallas or LA would actually be a good thing.

Off topic: You took the NYC job? Did you find a good place to rent/own?

No, I didn't. They just didn't seem sufficiently serious about the money, so I'm still freelancing. I just happen to be spending enormous amounts of time here lately.

what's her name?

WCBS. And she is a moody bitch, I tell you.

you can be a good citezen and go or there are ways out of it like saying your have to go out of town etc. just stuff like tht

Several years ago I was chosen for a murder jury. We were selected in mid-October. We went through the longest trial in local history, into the longest deliberation in local history. We tendered our verdict on New Year's Eve.

Good things about doing the duty (for me):
Learned a ton about how the system works.
Free food and mileage every day.
My employer pays full pay while on judu.
My job was not critical at the time, and I was able to return with little/no disruption.
90 minute lunches!!!
Later hours than my normal job.
Haven't been called back for judu since then, >10 years.