Jury Duty

Fishtaco

Fishtaco

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Anyone else done much Jury duty? I get Summonsed like clockwork every 5 years! $800 fine if I don't attend the 4 days for selection, you cant get out of it with a work letter anymore unless you are "official" essential services.

All my friends and family have never been summonsed for jury duty (I think in US its called a subpoena?) Not sure why they keep calling me? I am argumentative and I don't even trust myself lol.

The problem with Jurors is in my experience at least a third of them always believe the Defendant "must be guilty" because they were arrested in the first instance so their mind is made up before the court is in session! I have argued with jury members who say well they are guilty of something so they may as well be found guilty of these charges! prosecution and defence can only "Challenge" 4 attendees each during the in court selection prosses.

Its like a line of school children being led in and out of courtrooms by a sheriff from 8am to 11.30 am until you get selected or sent home till the next day :(
 
Summonsed to report in 83, 97, 2014, 2018 never on a jury.
Depending on the jurisdiction they will issue a bench warrant for " Failure to Appear ".
Everything is normal until you get pulled over by the Po PO for a tail light out and surprise
somebody is going for a ride in the back of a Ford Interceptor. ;)
Not worth the the fun of explaining to the family why you didn't come home.:(
 
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last time I went the jury was dismissed on a letter to the judge from the foreperson! It was my doing as well! The case was a main drug dealer had another drug dealer beaten up for not paying his debt, it was totally ridicules and I let my views known openly, the dealer who got beaten up was giving evidence against the accused drug dealer and was testifying that he had taken the drugs and distributed them to his runners but could not paid the main dealer lol
I let the other jurors know it was a waste of taxpayers money and my time for a criminal to admit in front of a judge and jury to drug dealing without criminal consequences just to get another drug dealer one peg up from him convicted!

Obviously it was the Cops forcing the lower drug dealer to court to save himself, If the cops cant do their job properly I don't agree with using the back door method and letting the lesser of the two go uncharged, if the lesser dealer was also facing charges it would have seemed reasonable but he wasnt!

Funny what you see and here in court though, you need a Thesaurus handy to understand their language used.
 
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I got a summons for zoom jury duty two weeks ago. It got cancelled is didn't have to do anything.
 
Sat on a jury once that deliberation turned into a nightmare. After a week of trial, several days of deliberation and many many votes on the verdict ended hung jury. Turned out one juror wouldn’t vote to convict not based on the evidence but his belief that he didn’t have the right to make a decision.
 
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ColoJeep said:
Summonsed to report in 83, 97, 2014, 2018 never on a jury.
Depending on the jurisdiction they will issue a bench warrant for " Failure to Appear ".
Everything is normal until you get pulled over by the Po PO for a tail light out and surprise
somebody is going for a ride in the back of a Ford Interceptor. ;)
Not worth the the fun of explaining to the family why you didn't come home.:(
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You must look dodgy to either the prosecution or defence lawyers lol

If we don't get chosen we have to return to court each morning for 4 days before we are released.
I have also been part of a jury swap where the sheriff takes you form one case to another case and swap with the existing jurors.

Think I will wear a MAGA hat and then they will just leave me in the assembly area for 4 days eating cookies :)
 
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I have been on a few juries. One thing I learned is to NOT TAKE NOTES in the jury box....they frown on it a lot. Still don't know why tho....
 
roverhi said:
Sat on a jury once that deliberation turned into a nightmare. After a week of trial, several days of deliberation and many many votes on the verdict ended hung jury. Turned out one juror wouldn’t vote to convict not based on the evidence but his belief that he didn’t have the right to make a decision.
Click to expand...
Its a hard thing to be part of taking away somebody's freedom and it can weigh heavily on your conscience if you believe the evidence was not straight forward to you!
If I ever got convicted I would request a judge only hearing because the judge understands the evidence presented and the law.
On my one hung jury the judge instructed the jury they must only take "Inference" to the evidence presented, as I said I need a thesaurus lol
 
Blondie70 said:
I have been on a few juries. One thing I learned is to NOT TAKE NOTES in the jury box....they frown on it a lot. Still don't know why tho....
Click to expand...
I believe the foreperson can take notes but if you are busy taking notes you are not paying attention?
People who take big thick novels are usually challenged by the defence because your mind is not on the job in the jury room where everyone discusses the case and naturally split into little groups, the knitters the readers the power hungry and those raising their eyebrows at the former :)
 
Fishtaco said:
You must look dodgy to either the prosecution or defence lawyers lol

If we don't get chosen we have to return to court each morning for 4 days before we are released.
I have also been part of a jury swap where the sheriff takes you form one case to another case and swap with the existing jurors.

Think I will wear a MAGA hat and then they will just leave me in the assembly area for 4 days eating cookies :)
Click to expand...
I think both sides avoid people they don't think they can easily manipulate.
It just makes their job harder. Sheeple will base everything on closing arguements and forget how the
evidence for or against the defendant actually played out.
 
From 1988 through 2008 I worked for a manufacturing plant with about 325 people. Over those years I was never called for jury duty but there were several people that had been called more than once. Eventually someone noticed that the people that were called more than once had last their name's initial very close to either the beginning or end of the alphabet. My last name starts with an M.

Since then I've been summonsed twice. Once shortly after opening my own business I was able to get out of it for that reason. The other time was in March 2020 and a few days before I was supposed to go, the covids closed the court.
 
I can believe the last name initial bit mine is T and there isn't many non Chinese with X and Z is usually out of it :)
I live in the capital city of my State so its were all the naughty boys get to go to the main courts so if picked I am up for at least 3-5 days unless I dont get picked till later in the week.
They stopped exemptions here they are only if it causes undue hardship else you have to front the judge and asked to be excused, if the judge says no the Defence challenges the juror as they step up anyway.
Do they wear those silly white curly wigs in USA ? :)
 
I don’t mind jury duty at all. The way I see it is if I ever needed a jury to decide my fate, I hope there’s more than one somebody that thinks like me in the jury. Having been the foreperson multiple times, it’s sometimes ridiculous as hell as to how different people view the exact same evidence. Having to re-explain what occurred, who’s who, what they did wrong, and why we are there multiple times can make you easily question what level of humanity you’re there with on occasion, but that’s why I think it’s important to serve.
Personally, I think our system would work better if we listed all crimes that have ever been committed In the past 50 years in the order of severity from top to bottom, drew a bright red line at a place where most reasonable people agree it should be, and anyone who commits a crime beyond that line is executed live on pay per view the following Saturday night. No more living out your years on the tax payers dime, taking up space and wasting oxygen somebody more worthy of it than you could use. They only thing up for debate is where we draw the red line at. Problem is, the moral majority doesn’t have the stomach to do what’s necessary to preserve itself.
 
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