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Jury Duty

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Jetgirl8

Jetgirl8

Aerospace
Aug 3, 2010
59
US
I have been called twice in 2 years. Officially, you can only duck out if called repeatedly within the same year, but until I lived here I never received a summons at all. It actually seems that the number of folks in my office who receive a jury summons is way above normal - one gent has been called 3 times in 9 years (I seem to be on track to beat that). First time I was called, I was happy to perform my civic duty. The timing of this most recent notice could not have been worse, so I've postponed until August, but based on the experience the first time around I'm just hoping it's not too much a waste of my time.

Just curious about other's experiences. Is this really that outside the norm?

When the future's architectured
By a carnival of idiots on show
You'd better lie low
 
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I was called once.
We spent most of our time in the jury room because of legal points being argued between the defence and prosecution juries before the judge.
In our case it was a gang of burglars who had robbed an old lady. The defence wanted to plead one of their clients guilty to a much lesser charge of receiving rather than burglary on the grounds that he didn't enter the property, he just stood outside the window and took things that were passed to him.
Yes, it appears there is no shame among the sharks.
They could have saved a lot of time letting us hand in a verdict right away, based on this, instead of wanting to go the full distance on this defence.
But bad as we may have been as a jury we were spared the 12 Just men routine by the judge agreeing to a mistrial (I think the defence may have read the juror's body language even before we got anywhere).
One thing we did agree on was the poor showing by the police witness. We rather expected some one a little more professional and articulate but he was probably expecting, as I suspect is the norm in these cases, and got, claims of police corruption and stitch ups and hence was very careful what he said and didn't say.
Yeah.
Which was why one of them wanted to chance his arm with guilty to receiving. That and the fact they were all caught, in possession, in their van on the M25 10 minutes from the scene.



JMW
 
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I have been called 5 or 6 times over the last 20 years.

I the area where I live any time you involved in a motor vehicle episode where a ticket is issued (even a parking violation) you can bet a jury summons is on the way.

I went the first time - complete waste of 4 days.

Since then I ignore the summons. The paperwork looks official but there is no way to determine if you actually received it. So long as it is not summons for a grand jury then in the circular file it goes.
 
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I got called twice in about 4 years. First was an attempted murder case that took 3 days. Second was the Lionel Murphy case and was expected to take 3 months. Yes 3 months. The judge was very lenient re excuses due to the time expected. I had a business trip to Europe booked foe two weeks time so I was excused. I got divorced a year later and have never been called since. I don't know why as it was over 20 years ago. Oh. Lionel Murphy was our Attorney General and was charged with corruption. I would really have loved to be a fly on that wall, but 3 months out of work!

Regards
Pat
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My brother in law got called in on a fraud case in the UK. It was meant to be 'expedited' using some new process - so that it would be done in 6 months.

In practice it dragged on for about 9 months though with some chunks of 'time off'.

Had a not insignificant impact on his career.

Posting guidelines faq731-376 (probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​
 
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I was called in January. The way they do it here is that you are on-call for a month. 4-8 times during the month you have to show up for voir dire and if you get picked you're on the jury. They use a questionnaire to pre-select the jury pool they really want then they "randomly" assign juror numbers. Every time I had to go in, my juror number was above 40 (out of 50). No one with a number higher than 20 got on any of the juries. I guess I answered the questionnaire correctly. A lawyer friend of mine says that he won't ever pick an engineer, too hard to sell the bleeding heart BS. It was still a pain to not be able to schedule ANYTHING for an entire month.

My wife has been called for next month so 1/6 of the year we're stuck in town. Her summons said that if she had been on a jury in the last 24 months she could be excused--she was last in the pool in February 2010 and 26 months doesn't count. She's livid and plans to carry her gun on her hip into the courthouse (she has a concealed carry permit). She figures that will brand her as a wacko and get her off. She is a bit of a wacko, but I bet it won't work.

David
 
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Been spared jury duty my whole life. For one thing I've moved too much. When I've been called, the minute they find out I have testified in court on numerous cases as an expert witness, I'm dismissed.

"Gorgeous hair is the best revenge." Ivana Trump
 
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I got a summons a couple of years ago. It totally wrecked any planning, since they wanted me to be available every day for a couple of weeks, but not necessarily required. So it was daily phone calls. I was actually looking forward to it at the start, but glad when it was over. Never needed to go to the court once in the end.

- Steve
 
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On the case I served on, I actually found it interesting for the 3 days and it was no significant impact on my business. Three months would have caused severe hardship and got real boring real quick I think.

The scary part was the "quality of at least 3 other members

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376 for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &
for site rules
 
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I'd be pretty ticked off to be called twice in 2 years. I've never been called in the 20 years I've been eligible and I don't know anyone who has been called more than once (UK based).
 
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Thank God I have never been called.
I like to keep it like that till the rest of my life.
What is the criteria they use to summon you?

JoeChem
Did I understand you well? So if you are a "Law breaker" you are eligible to be a jury. Is this one way of making you pay back?
 
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Can't speak for other countries, but in England/Wales we're told it's a random selection from the electoral register. Not easy to get out of either without a sensible reason.


- Steve
 
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I was picked twice within a couple months. But that was due to one being a county court case (robbery) and the other being a federal court case (assault by dog). I was told it was two different pools. I was also told that in the federal cases, the pool gets reshuffled every 4 years so it is conceivable to be picked twice with very little time in between.

The defense lawyer asked me if, being an engineer, if I could make a decision based upon reasonable doubt, without everything being black and white.

I got picked and when it came time for deliberations, I made them give me the legal definitions of at least 10 terms that were used in the case. The other jurors didn't like it, but it helped me to get to "reasonable doubt".
 
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I lived in Los Angeles, a population of nearly 10 million people. Over the 13yrs there, I had received a jury summons 6 times. I actually only attended jury duty once. The first 3 times, I just continued to call-in until I was no longer needed. The other 3 times I had to actually take time off and go to the courthouse.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."


Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of these Forums?
 
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I have served on two juries. The second one was an interesting jury selection process.
When in the jury box for selection;
One guy had served time in prision, when asked if he could send someone to prison, he said he could not do that to anyone because of his experience.
Another guy when asked if he could be fair to the defendant if he had a record. He responded "once a skunk, always a skunk". It seemed a bit tense in the jury box for a while.
Both were excused.

But whatever you do, don't do what this lady did:
 
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I've never been called -- 33 years of luck thus far.

Good on ya,

Goober Dave

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Well, who knows what waits for me in August. Last time it was just a 2 week disruption - I could only make plans a day at a time (call in every night at 5 to find out what next - hurry up and wait!) I hope it's just a week or two of calling in and/or appearing on the day required. Had one lady in the office sit for a trial for a month (!) only to have it dismissed just before being turned over to the jury. Haven't had any tickets recently and really don't understand the 'criteria' - I just know it seems to really target the folks in my office.

When the future's architectured
By a carnival of idiots on show
You'd better lie low
 
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Called several times in 20 years. First time, some 20 years ago or so, had to go downtown to the county courthouse and sit in a jury room for 8 hrs, 5 days/week. Selected for jury at day 2, which lasted a week (assault with a deadly weapon, we reached a conviction after 3 days of deliberation). Like Pat, it was interesting, and eye-opening as to what a jury of my "peers" might be like; the people who used to be able to find the time for jury duty are not always people of...normal abilities let's say.

Since then, the vehicle liscensing database was opened up for jury calls, which expanded the base of valid data from which to pull jury summons. Also, the jury duty has changed to 3 days in the jury room, and you need to prove hardship to get dismissed (letter from your boss not good enough). Several calls since then, never more than a few days before being dismissed.

Selected to a jury 2nd time a few years back, for a product liability suit - the defense(? maybe is was the plaintiff?) lawyer had already rejected several jurists from a pool of some 50, and used up his preemptive dismissals. Tried to have me dismissed because I was an engineer and might have knowledge uncommon to a layperson, judge overruled, and we all heard a stern lecture to that lawyer about wasting people's time. After we had been selected, and sat in jury box, sworn in etc., the judge immediately dismissed us - and 15 minutes later we were dismissed completely, as the dispute was settled.
 
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