how do you feel about jury duty?

[DamnYankee]

also, only if you are registered to vote, do you get called for jury duty.

Not so here. DLs and other public info is used as a "trigger".

 

[AVG-JOE]

If they would make the the whole process less painful, more people would be willing to serve. Compensation for jury duty should be raised. People think of it as an intolerable chore they need to get out of.

I think it is people who work for a living try to get out of it. It shouldn't be an economic hardship, it should be a slight, but smile making economic windfall. A day off with reasonable pay, at least, and no consequences from your employer.

-Joe

..... and... we should be encouraged to start a thread about it at USMB - if it goes nowhere, 'meh', as Kitten Koder would say.

The entertaining / informative ones will be almost as fun as the gossip and redneck humor. Hell, We, the People may learn something about ourselves.

-Joe

 

[AVG-JOE]

and that was directed to whom? or just in general....how many companies allow you to turn in your juror's pay then pay you ..your regular pay?

One state at least that I looked at makes your employer pay you your hourly rate for up to two weeks, IIRC. It's Vermont or CT, can't remember which.

We get paid, but I work for a municipality so I suppose it's a quid pro quo type of thing. Only been called twice and actually chosen once, on a civil case. It was settled before a decision had to be made.

It's not quid pro quo... it is a union boss sitting across from management who is spending other people's money. We, The Peoples.

Nice score on the job!

-Joe

 

[alan1]

also, only if you are registered to vote, do you get called for jury duty.

Not so here. DLs and other public info is used as a "trigger".

Here where I live, they use voter registration and Drivers License as their pool of candidates.

 

[barry1960]

I believe that jury duty is a civic obligation and that people should serve if they are able. If someone cannot serve due t hardship they should be excused. I am tired of people bragging about using bogus excuses to not serve while declaring their time time is just valuable. To me, that is selfish and unpatriotic.

I have served on three juries, one civil and two criminal. The civil case jury experience was good. One criminal case ended with a 6 to 6 hung jury and was a bad experience. Since the insanity defense was raised, many facts were kept from the juries as agreed upon by the defense and prosecution. These facts included nature of the assault, weapon used and time of day. When it came time to deliberate we had no idea exactly what had occurred. Tempers flared in the jury room. One guy, one minute into deliberation, stated he could never put a person in jail, left the table and starred out the window for the duration. Without his cooperation no decision could be reached. Despite writing a note to him, the judge refused to intervene. When we failed to arrive at a decision, the jury was severely chastised by the judge.

The third case plead out on the first day of trial.

I find the jury experience to be tedious. The method for picking juries is painstackingly slow. For the first twelve seated in the jury box, many detailed questions are asked. However after many challanges and as the pool of prospectiver jurors thins, the questions die out. As was previously stated, the actual case moves a lot slower than all the television shows. It was very educational to see our legal system in action and everyone should serve once.

 

[Shadow]

Here in Waldo County it is not untypical for a juror (I think it's like $21 buck a day) to come out of the court to discover that they have parking tickets with fines which exceed their daily pay.

Meanwhile the judges and lawyers are making huge bucks.

Screw that.

We get $6 from the county. It costs $7 to park anywhere near the courthouse.

It does here in NM also. However they validate your parking for you everyday when you get called for jury duty.

 

[Shadow]

Jury duty should be voluntary, since we do pay taxes. The theory is sound, but it really doesn't make as much of a difference in sentencing anyway, and to make it an obligation just makes some people bitter. Making the employers pay for the time is just as bad as underpaying the jurors.

Most people called for jury duty, DO NOT SERVE their time and the government allows near every excuse to get out of this duty....if you need the money and can't miss work, is one that is acceptable, if you have an important meeting, it is acceptable etc...to not serve.

also, only if you are registered to vote, do you get called for jury duty.

I asked about this the last time I served because they call me to jury duty every three years like clock work. From what I was told by the judge. They used to only go by voter registration,but not enough people registered ,so they also go by car registration information now.

 

[strollingbones]

shouldnt it be from property owners rolls. ...why should it only be people who vote or drive...a friend was called....on a murder case..he did not want to serve....the lady in front of him...did not drink, did not own guns nor did she believe in the death penalty....she is accpeted...my friend gets up there...does drink, does own guns and sure believes in the death penalty...the take him too....he serves for 3 weeks....he never talks about it...i do not know if i could do a murder child or a child molestor trial....

 

[Baruch Menachem]

Despite the best efforts to dumb down the system, the folks who actually show up are usually pretty on the ball. I noticed a couple dumb clucks, but they were conscientious. and the verdicts usually made pretty good sense.

My first Jury case, I was on the wrong side all the way through, but the defendant (it was a civil case ) was such a total jerk I could see why the rest of the jury hated him. Didn't make the case any better for justice.

 

[strollingbones]

well we will call back tuesday night....i cant wait for them to call me....it would just depend on the case

 

[DamnYankee]

One state at least that I looked at makes your employer pay you your hourly rate for up to two weeks, IIRC. It's Vermont or CT, can't remember which.

We get paid, but I work for a municipality so I suppose it's a quid pro quo type of thing. Only been called twice and actually chosen once, on a civil case. It was settled before a decision had to be made.

It's not quid pro quo... it is a union boss sitting across from management who is spending other people's money. We, The Peoples.

Nice score on the job!

-Joe

My particular agency (Health) was non-union until this year, and only certain positions throughout (Police, Fire, DPW) were/are union, so that really wasn't/isn't applicable. And yeah.... The "score" was great when I started 15+ years ago.... Mid 20s with benefits.... Nearly half what I had been making previously when that company relocated. Seems the "Clinton era" wasn't all it was cracked up to be....

 

[editec]

personally, I believe we should move to a professional jury system.

People trained in logic and legal procedure representing an unbiased cross section of the population would be better jurors than some Podunk redneck with a 5th grade education or a person who resents the fact that he has to take days weeks or months out of his life to sit on a jury.

I'm insulted by that 5th grade remark. Some of us "Podunk redneck" "dumb ass hicks in the sticks" do not like the idea of giving up time to a corrupt legal system that won't even pay for the cost of the gas to drive into town.

The concern from my perspective would be is the "professional jury" made up of non-biased people? How would you be able to prevent "special interest groups" from infiltrating the system? Many judges to day are not there on the bench to insure justice. They were put there to insure they cover someone's ass.

A not entirely unreasonable complaint.

The alternative, then is to at least make jury duty salaries bear some realtionship to what people expect to make on a per diem basis.

And, at least in the case of Waldo country, provide free parking.

 

[Zoom-boing]

I served on jury duty years ago, civil case. A guy who worked the forklift truck in a factory got his ankle badly hurt when the forklift truck failed to stop and he put his foot out and it got injured against a wall. They were claiming faulty forklift truck but during the trial it came out that the guy had a clipboard and other things (pens maybe) that got stuck and made it difficult to maneuver the forklift. The truck wasn't found faulty but the driver was. The guy's lawyer looked like he had slept in his suit and rolled out of bed. The forklift manufacturer's lawyer looked like Arnie from L.A. Law.

I enjoyed the whole experience and at the time was glad to get out of work for a week or so. I've been called for duty like clock work every other year for the past 15 years or more. I keep telling them I have a special needs child and need to be home but if they wanted to pay for someone to watch him while I did jury duty, no problem. They never do call me back. I'd serve again if I could.

 

[American Horse]

someday i will figure out how jurors are selected...

I've been called for jury duty four times and served twice. Once was a civil trial in which an attorney was accused of dereliction of duty to a client. The second was a criminal trial in which two teens broke into a business, stole a truck from the business, drove it out on a county road and torched it. In both trials the evidence was conclusive and there should've been no hesitation in finding for guilt but the jury in both was very reticent to do that. The reason was sympathy. For the attorney because of all the time he’d spent getting his education and the damage finding for the complainant would do to his career, and for the teens because the parents were always in the court, and struck sympathetic images.

In one of the trials someone actually asked for taking secret votes, and I quickly vetoed that, and the majority agreed to my objection. Bot after a few votes were taken, and people expressed themselves, the "accused" were found guilty. The experience gave me insight into the minds of juries, and attorneys.

Never did I mind being called for jury duty - but being self employed probably made it easier for me to take time out from work - but I was much put out when I had to repeatedly go in and then not be allowed to serve.

I believe that most people who are called for jury duty have their names taken from their local voter rolls, and so they probably are registered for the vote; based on that, when people say they have never been called for jury duty I suspect they are not voters. But of course this is not a hard and fast rule by any means, as I’m sure people right here would set me straight on that.

So….has anyone who has never voted been called for Jury duty? Probably fewer jurors are needed than are on the voter rolls, and those who are friendly towards serving may be called again and again, meaning some registered voters are never called.

.

 

[random3434]

AR, they changed the way to select jurors, because some people weren't registering to vote so they wouldn't have to do jury duty.


Now they can select you from your voters registration or if you have a driver's licence.

 

[Citizen]

O am offended that they pay jurors so little for that service, to be frank.

Decent companies pay the difference.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Jury duty is another form of involuntary servitude.

 

[strollingbones]

update on petit jury duty: my husband was called may 4th...we basically would call...be given another date to call then so and and so forth...he never had to go....

hope i am not repeating

 

[Citizen]

Jury duty sucks but I view it as a civic duty to do as a citizen when called to serve.

I don't. I consider it a control issue. The amount of taxes I pay more than covers my "civic duty", IMO. It's just more of the government intruding on your personal life.

Fortunately for me, I'm such a mean, redneck looking bastard I always make the first cut!

I would like to present several very good reasons for every citizen to serve on juries.

Thomas Jefferson said, "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."

The power of the jury to judge the justice of the law and to hold laws invalid by a finding of "not guilty" for any law a juror felt was unjust or oppressive, dates back to the Magna Carta, in 1215.

John Adams said of the juror, "it is not only his right, but his duty – to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court."

First Supreme Court Justice John Jay, instructed jurors that the jury has "a right to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy."

In 1895, the Supreme Court, under pressure from large corporations, rendered in a bitter split decision that courts no longer had to inform juries they had the power to veto an unjust law.

Despite the courts refusal to inform jurors of their historical veto power, jury nullification in liquor-law trials was a major contributing factor in ending alcohol prohibition. Today in some states, jurors often refuse to convict under the marijuana-prohibition laws.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Jury duty sucks but I view it as a civic duty to do as a citizen when called to serve.

I don't. I consider it a control issue. The amount of taxes I pay more than covers my "civic duty", IMO. It's just more of the government intruding on your personal life.

Fortunately for me, I'm such a mean, redneck looking bastard I always make the first cut!

I would like to present several very good reasons for every citizen to serve on juries.

Thomas Jefferson said, "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."

The power of the jury to judge the justice of the law and to hold laws invalid by a finding of "not guilty" for any law a juror felt was unjust or oppressive, dates back to the Magna Carta, in 1215.

John Adams said of the juror, "it is not only his right, but his duty – to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court."

First Supreme Court Justice John Jay, instructed jurors that the jury has "a right to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy."

In 1895, the Supreme Court, under pressure from large corporations, rendered in a bitter split decision that courts no longer had to inform juries they had the power to veto an unjust law.

Despite the courts refusal to inform jurors of their historical veto power, jury nullification in liquor-law trials was a major contributing factor in ending alcohol prohibition. Today in some states, jurors often refuse to convict under the marijuana-prohibition laws.

Trial by jury is important, however, nobody should be forced to serve against their will on a jury, especially if they would be better served by simply going to their own job and making an actual living. I, personally, would be willing to serve on a jury every so often, but I understand that it is a nuisance to many.