What Could be Worse than Spending your Morning in a Jury Assembly Room? - Page 2

Well, we are only human. At least, WE like to think we are. The general public may feel we're less than human. But I digress. . . .

I'd love just once to serve on a civil jury, as I am a civil litigation attorney. The insight into how juries think and decide a case would be invaluable for my practice. Car accidents are my stock in trade, so one of them would be ideal. But I don't think it's likely to happen, as I live in the county I work in, & know all the judges and many of the attorneys that would try such a case. They'd be unlikely to keep me on a civil case, as it'd be presumed the rest of the jury would keep looking at me for guidance, thinking I know more than them about what's going on.

Iggy, are you wishing for jury duty? What the hell is a matter with you?!

Anyway, I thought you guys could get jury consultants and all that stuff.

I'd actually like to do it ONCE just to see what it was really like. It would be pretty cool to get onto a really high profile case.

I sat on a jury for an assault case a few years ago. Three days and I enjoyed learning the process, not to mention we ate well.

Sure beat working, I was hoping for the trial of the century but, it was only three days. You all must like your jobs, where I work we all hope to get jury duty.

I got called for jury duty last year. I tried hard to get dismissed for cause. I'm a lawyer and had about 20 active cases in front of the judge trying the criminal case. The prosecutor was one of my best friends from law school. The defense attorney represented the other party in six of my active cases at the time. And I had just applied for a job at the Attorney General's office in my state. They never dismissed me for cause. I was one of the last of the potential jurors excused when they finally used a peremptory challenge on me.

I served on civil jury duty about 10 years ago, and honestly, it was an incredible amount of fun. Not to sound like an idiot, because the case settled before we could even deliberate, and I did learn a few things I didn't know before. But mostly because I lucked out because - well, take one group of very cool people, toss in a few judicial clusterfucks, and a good time is had by all.

As a creator of some of said judicial clusterfucks, I'm glad we can entertain you! We'll be here all week; try the cafetaria veal, & don't forget to tip the bailiffs!

I have been called to...Two juries. The first was such a miserable experience, that I did not want to do it again. for the 2nd time, I was hoping to be let off, but that was not to be the case. I got as far, as being in the room with other prospective jurors, the judge and the defendant and his lawyer. The judge asked me a question, and I stated...I would definitely decide the defendant was guilty. The judge was quite upset, and he told me to get out of his courtroom.

Good one... duke fleed! Personally my excuse for getting out of jury duty was saying that I was uncomfortable with judging a person and possibly sending them to prison. Heh heh it worked!

My fun stories actually have very little to do with the cases. Let me earn my keep around here for a bit, and I'll try to post some of them. I warn you, though, they're more dumb than anything else. Well, okay, one of them is.

I get a summons about every 18 months or so. They like us IT guys, because we're usually pretty logical. I served on a week-long trial of a woman suing a doctor for causing her a stroke while she was in surgery. We unanimously found in favor of the doctor on our first "vote" when we went back to deliberate. So essentially we spent 5 days listening to evidence, testimony, etc., then spent 2 minutes making our decision. We decided to wait until they brought in all the evidence, then wasted about 15-20 minutes chatting, etc., so it wouldn't seem like we decided so quickly.

Also was in the jury pool for a 2-time loser that had robbed a liquor store with a pistol, when he was already on probation for using a gun in another crime. There was a woman in the jury pool that used every bit of body language that she could to show she didn't want to be there. At one point, the bailiff told her to straighten up or she'd find herself spending a night in jail for contempt. Luckily the prosecuting atty for the county had to go home sick, so they postponed the trial, and we all got to leave right after lunch. The real strange thing--when they started asking questions of the pool, like have you been robbed, have been robbed at gunpoint, have you had a gun pointed at you, have you been arrested, etc., nearly every person raised their hands for every question.

Too bad you didn't get on that Letterman jury.

I get absolutely disgusted when people try to get out of jury duty. You have no excuses that can justify it to me - if you're an American, it's one of your civic responsibilities. If you disagree, fuck you.

Note to JVC though - that's terrible. They absolutely should have let you off for cause in that situation.

The problem arises because most employers will not pay you during your time on a jury. It results in the eating of vacation time and possible financial ruin.

I've never had that experience. I've always been paid.

I had 2 jury summons ever, and both of them came to me via forwarded mail from locations that I'd moved away from. I always thought it was funny that the two times I ever somehow got picked it was situations that I honestly had no choice in, I couldn't drive hundreds of miles to serve.

Of course, last week summons #3 arrived. Apparently I now have to call after 4:30 pm on October 27th to find out if I'm needed on October 28th. That sure makes it hard to arrange things with my job, but I guess that's their issue to deal with.

The fact is, if people stopped going to jury duty, our justice system would cease to function. People think the system may be rigged. It's not. What we do have is the lowest common denominator deciding the most complex cases because people do everything they can to get out of jury duty. You'd be surprised at how much courts need people with a decent head on their shoulders to serve in these cases. I just don't have a lot of sympathy, because there's a chance some of you may need a jury someday, whether if it's for a lawsuit of a criminal matter.

If you have a legitimate excuse, that's cool. But I wish people would think about it more than they do - people who strong political convictions like many of the posters here should understand that.

Public sector employees will get paid but in exchange will not receive the daily stipend. Private sector RARELY if ever pays for an employee when they are on jury duty. Employers are required to allow employees the time if they are to serve on a jury. But they are not required to pay them. Total bullshit, if you ask me.

I work for the private sector, always have, and I've always been paid by my employers - three different employers on three different occasions. Now, that much being said, I will say that the last time I was called, my job back then was at a very small financial firm with about 35 employees. It was their policy that you got three days off for jury duty, and after that, you'd have to try to work something out with HR if you were going to be longer. I was sent to go for grand jury duty, but didn't get selected, so I was only gone one day. I left the job soon after that, so I don't know how it would have panned out if I'd been selected to serve longer than three days. The prior two times I was called to serve, I was gone one week (criminal jury duty), and two weeks (civil jury duty) respectively. But I worked for two really huge companies both times, so they had no issue with paying me for however long I had to be out.

I also never understood why people try to get out of jury duty. It's what makes our system work, agreed. I think the problem is that we're so conditioned as a society to think that we're supposed to hate jury duty, and to think that we're supposed to try and wiggle out of it. I think that many people don't see it for the truly interesting experience it can be. Go to jury duty just once, even if it's just for a day, even just civil jury duty, and tell me if you don't come out of there having learned at least one thing. Plus, you're not at work, so assuming you're being paid, bring a book in case they have you sitting around doing nothing - the absolute worst that can happen is you catch up on your reading.

What do you mean "even just a civil jury"?!

Naww, I didn't mean it that way - I had the most interesting experience on a civil jury trial, so I'm not knocking it. But most people I know bitch and complain about having to hear about injured backs in slip and fall cases - the common complaint being that if it's not a juicy murder trial, it's "beneath" them. Which it's not, of course, but my point being that with the way people try to get out of jury duty, they complain even louder if it's civil.

Dammit Lisa, you've just pissed off the trial lawyers. Don't you realized their power?!

Mua-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Honestly, if I didn't have to drive all the way the hell downtown from my home in the 'burbs, I wouldn't care about jury duty. It's all interesting to me. Getting down there and then getting back home is the biggest pain in the ass to me. Takes me about an hour each way.

Someone mentioned getting forwarded jury summons after they had moved...I was about to move from Pensacola, FL to Maryland, and the last day I picked up my mail (the day before I was leaving), I had a jury summons. Luckily one of my good friends' mom worked as a nurse for the city, and she knew the judge. So my friend just called up the clerk for the judge and told her what was going on, and I was done.

I had jury duty today. Interesting case, too. I got picked for a panel, surprisingly, even though I work at a court - I was certain someone was going to punt me off. But it never happened.

Here's a surrealistic nightmare for you: your truck hits a car which then hits a car in front of it that's full of lawyers. Said lawyers file a shit-ton of lawsuits against the guy in the truck. Poor bastard. He actually got off light considering what could have been. Fortunately he only tapped them. But they all complained of pain and went to their doctors. He settled with two of them, one didn't file against him, and the final one's case was today and we awarded him his medical damages which were upwards of $3000.

Get this, the third lawyer represented himself and he must have thought he was Perry fucking Mason, because in describing an impact in a car with no visible damage, he took a bag out with an egg carton full of eggs in it and slammed it on the jury bench, and all the eggs broke. I guess this is to show how an egg carton could sustain little damage but the eggs inside could all be broken, because egg cartons = cars and eggs = people. We shouldn't have awarded him anything for that shit alone, but he did document his medical damages really well.