Jury Duty

[LCHIEN]

Tomorrow I have Jury Duty. I will get up early, take the free mass transit (for jurors) to downtown Houston and serve my county for $6 remuneration. Which I am supposed to declare on my income tax. Actually when my wife worked for the school district, she was supposed to sign the check over to them.

I always go to Jury duty... I figure one day I may be in front of a jury and hope to heck that people like me are sitting on it. It can also be interesting to see how the process works.

I found out a few years ago from the local paper that although there's a law requiring you to show up, there's no enforcement. Apparently there's no easy way to prove that you actually got the summons. Except registered mail and the county clerk said that he wasn't going to pay the extra 1.4 million per year that would cost to use. So as long as enough people show up then the'yll continue sending out summonses and hope that the current rate of ~40% (IIRC) turnout continues to provide enough bodies.

[cgallery]

I figure one day I may be in front of a jury...

Huh. I never figured you for the type.

[Pappy]

Huh. I never figured you for the type.

Think about it. Loring still manages to make a living while spending all his time on BT3. Sounds a little fishy to me!

[crokett]

I went to jury duty once years ago. Sat in the pool room for 5hrs, then went into the courtroom for jury selection. It was fun seeing people try to get out of being selected. One guy got rejected because he was a friend of the arresting officer in the case. another guy claimed he coudn't hear well enough, so the judge whispered something and the guy says 'Yes Your Honor" and the judge decided he could hear after all.... I did not get selected.

[leehljp]

I have been on one - many years ago when I was in my 20's. It was very interesting and I enjoyed the experience. Convicted 3 people for beating up a state policeman. The main witness outside of the SP was a fellow with the 3 who refused to participate. At least his parents brought him up right. There were two other witnesses on the scene shortly after the fight began.

I get a "call" about every two or three years now, but my daughter calls the courthouse and tells them I am out of the country.

[430752]

I go, its my civic duty, and I'm an attorney. We don't get an automatic waiver anymore (well, actually, ended before I got licensed) since the public was upset that cops, judges, lawyers, and others connected to the system used to get exempeted. Its stupid since I'll never get picked, and wastes time as well as one of either the plaintiff's or defendant's preemptories, but I actually hope one day I'll get picked. It is our duty, and one day it might be me too. Plus, I don't buy the argument that lawyers screwed the whole thing up with multimillion dollar verdicits, its the jurors that decide, not lawyers, so since I've already been convicted of the crime, I'd like to actually do it, you know, 10 gagillion dollars for looking at a guy the wrong way, or may 13 trillion for serving coffee too cold, something...anything...

[radhak]

Loring,

I think you need to prounce him/her 'GUILTY!!!', and not let facts get in the way . Whatever the case, please go with a firm conviction ( ! ) in mind, and don't waver. Put your mark there, man!

I can't understand why anybody would try to get out of Jury duty (unless of course you are not on 'paid time off'). It would be a great diversion for me. I have never got the call - how do I 'invite' one?

[dbhost]

I've been called 4x, twice a couple of years ago while I was taking some continuing ed classes. I had just started this job the day I got the summons. I got waived off because of school. (I have taken one or two classes every couple of years at the college, or through training centers to keep up with changes in technology).

Once I sat through the Jury selection process. Sort of disappointing to witness how the courts actually work up to that point. I do see the importance of juror selection now, and COMPLETELY understand how O.J. (A.K.A. Slasher) Simpson got off the first time around. They just picked people that could be easily led toward a conclusion.

The first time I got a jury summons it was from Pima County (Arizona) courts, apparently drivers license and / or vehicle title changes put your name to the top of the list... I had just gotten my Texas drivers license and changed my Vehicle titles to Texas titles. Pima County even sent the summons to my, at the time Houston, Texas address! You should have seen the reply letter requesting my dismissal from Arizona Jury duty...

I'm probably one of those few idiots that actually doesn't mind doing my civic duty, but the courts really ought to take people's lives and schedules into consideration. I REALLY would have liked doing that jury duty here AFTER the semester was over.

[shoottx]

With my last name, I get called every 2 years for the county, and every 4 years for the city.

Collin county, where I live has one of the highest jury summons compliance rates in the country over 90%. I think it is tied to the efficiency of the selection process. After showing up, the county uses a random selection process, if you are not selected, you are done in one hour max. If you are selected for the jury pool, you move to the next process, that may take a while 1 -3 hours then you are either empaneled or released.

I have only been empaneled one time and was promptly dismissed when I broke out laughing at the premise for the defense by the defendants attorney. "Hey dude you left your roach in the ashtray of my car and I got busted" and "of course it was bad companions, some one as nice as me would never do anything like smoke dope" Oh well

[os1kne]

Hmm, I hadn't thought about it - but I lived in Collin County, TX for about 6.5 years and I was summonsed for jury duty 3 times. I've lived in 2 other counties in the past 7 years and haven't been called for jury duty once. I probably should have kept silent, since I mentioned it, there's probably a summons in my mailbox right now.

[bruce hylton]

Over the last 40 years I have been called for jury duty 9 times. Three of those I begged off because of financial reasons, three I went in to be sent home for one reason or another before there was a trial and the other three I was selected and dismissed. The first because I was a friend of the family, the second because I knew and disliked the defendent and the third because the judge asked if I could make an unbiased judgement based on his interpretation of the law. I was taught that I was supposed to make my judgement based on my interpretation of the law as read by the judge. This was cause for dismissal from the trial and it proceeded to an acquital anyway.

[Kristofor]

I've never been called for jury duty.

I did receive a letter several years ago that I was a possible candidate for the local federal court for a period of one year I believe, but never heard anything more about that so I guess I was at the bottom of the pool for the year.

I've never been contacted for the city/county courts, though the people I work with who have been simply dial a phone number each day to see if they need to go in the next day for a week or two. The vast majority seem to not need to go in at all during the period..

My only experince with the court system was suing (we won) our landlord over a withheld security deposit basically because we forgot to clean the oven. There were 4 of us living in the house and we split up the move-out clean-up tasks and overlooked the oven. Fair enough if he wanted to keep $50 or $100 for hassle factor which we told him, but this goofball assumed that we'd just ignore him trying to pocket $2K... He ended up having to pay the full amount plus fees, etc. so I guess the system worked in that case.

[Ed62]

I've never been contacted for the city/county courts, though the people I work with who have been simply dial a phone number each day to see if they need to go in the next day for a week or two. The vast majority seem to not need to go in at all during the period..

I was contacted one time. The quote was exactly what happened in my case.

Ed

[MilDoc]

Called for jury duty 3 times:

#1 - plaintiff vs insurance company. Auto accident. In court and sent back to the jury room 6 times, more time in the jury room than in the court, so the judge and the attorneys could have "private" discussions. Last time, CASE DISMISSED by the judge. Why can't they figure this out ahead of time?

# 2 - Commitment trial. Guy obviously NUTS. Took 20 minutes.

# 3 - Spent the morning in court listening to lawyers (with slide shows) AND the judge explain the law and why we were there. ALL morning (gee, lawyers SURE like to talk!). Didn't get chosen but didn't get released until 4:30. Total waste of time. Could have picked a jury quickly WITHOUT their bombastic BS.

The "so-called" justice system. Uh huh.

[BobSch]

Never been called even though we've lived at the same address for over 30 years. My wife, OTOH, has been called three times but never chosen.