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Jury Duty
Brookwood
Member, Moderator Posts: 13,768 ******
Just did my duty earlier this week as a member of a panel of 13 jurists in my counties circuit court. It was a very petty case and I was really upset that our local gov't went to all of the expense and time to make it to trial. The assistant prosecutor handling things looked to be about a week out of high school and needed constant advise and tutorage from the chief prosecutor and the judge.
I concluded that this hearing was merely an educational step in training for a someday (maybe) prosecutor!
Anyway, my main reason for sharing this experience is more about how things have changed over the years. This was my 2nd jury duty in my lifetime, my first was a much more exciting murder\bar room brawl trial that lasted a full 2 weeks way back in the summer of 1982. During this time, all of the members of the jury got to know each other pretty well. Although we were not allowed to even start talking about the case until the deliberations (trials end), we all shared our life stories, our work, family stuff, and our interests with each other daily while we had to leave the court room and sit around the big table in the jury room.
Back then, this room was equipped with an always going coffee pot, hot water and envelopes for hot chocolate, packaged snacks & cookies, and enough ash trays for 13 smokers! Most of them were heavily used as well.
Flash forward to 2019. The same jury room with coffee pot and nothing else. 13 jurors sitting around the big table, 12 of them looking steadily forward into their smart phones. Most of them punching buttons. Nobody saying a single word to one another. Me, the only one without one of those "anti-social" contraptions tries to liven things up with a few jokes. Mostly related to smart phones. I only got several dirty looks and a couple of irrelevant comments and then back to the quietness of a mortuary.
I have concluded that I am an old fossil and will remain content to stay that way!
I concluded that this hearing was merely an educational step in training for a someday (maybe) prosecutor!
Anyway, my main reason for sharing this experience is more about how things have changed over the years. This was my 2nd jury duty in my lifetime, my first was a much more exciting murder\bar room brawl trial that lasted a full 2 weeks way back in the summer of 1982. During this time, all of the members of the jury got to know each other pretty well. Although we were not allowed to even start talking about the case until the deliberations (trials end), we all shared our life stories, our work, family stuff, and our interests with each other daily while we had to leave the court room and sit around the big table in the jury room.
Back then, this room was equipped with an always going coffee pot, hot water and envelopes for hot chocolate, packaged snacks & cookies, and enough ash trays for 13 smokers! Most of them were heavily used as well.
Flash forward to 2019. The same jury room with coffee pot and nothing else. 13 jurors sitting around the big table, 12 of them looking steadily forward into their smart phones. Most of them punching buttons. Nobody saying a single word to one another. Me, the only one without one of those "anti-social" contraptions tries to liven things up with a few jokes. Mostly related to smart phones. I only got several dirty looks and a couple of irrelevant comments and then back to the quietness of a mortuary.
I have concluded that I am an old fossil and will remain content to stay that way!
Comments
I stop at a light and look around and just about everyone in on their phone.
Go to a restaurant people are on the phone even people sitting together.
Waiting room..........bingo same same.
Me I take a book when I know I will have a long wait........it must blow peoples minds.
I have a funny story about Jury Duty:
My Dad was 85 and had just gone into the Rest home because he had dementia bad. I got his mail changed to be delivered to me so I could pay bills and such. Well he gets a jury summons(I was shocked he is 85! I figured there was an age limit)
So I call the clerk of courts in DeKalb Co Georgia and I tell LaDasha that my Dad has Dementia and is in a nursing home. So she tells me I have to get all this paperwork together from 2 Dr's and have it notarized and bring it to court.......ect..ect
I tell LaDasha who probably weighed 300#'s and has fingernails 9" long and doesn't move from here desk unless its to eat(I have been to the court many times), that I live in NC and it really isn't convenient for me to go through all that and would she just not take my word for it.............No way
So I told her I am not doing all that and to come put my Dad in jail, He would still get 3 hots and cot and I would be saving about 6K a month.
She didn't think that was funny and I really didn't GAS..........So now there is probably a warrant out for my Dads arrest :shock:
A year ago, on October 30, she died. In August of this year, she got a summons to serve on a Jury in September. I called the courthouse to explain that she would not be appearing. The lady who answered the phone is a friend of ours. She told me that she had removed my mother's name when she died last year. I said that apparently she is still on some list, and I expect she'll be voting Democrat in the next election (which would make her turn over in her casket, if she knew).
Some face tattooed gang member kidnapped and murdered someone and shot at the police.
When she was interviewed, she said "he looks guilty to me!" And They picked her! She was trying to get sent home! Her new employer would not pay her for time off.
Any way, it was almost a month and whatever county in Arizona paid the difference between what she should/would have been paid by her employer and the little bit jury duty pays so financially she came out about even.
Oh yeah, they found the thug guilty on like 9 of 10 counts. He will be busy for quite some time.....
It has been my experience that of the people that are ultimatly selected, 8 out of 12 are not only not smart enough to avoid jury duty, they are so stupid they should never be let out of the house without an escort!
The other 4 juriers however (trying to perform their duty), are disillusioned forever after their experience.
Smart lawyers are fully aware of this and use it to their advantage. Hence, your wealth DOES determine your outcome, if you are the defendant.
I have maintained for many years that prosocution deals should be outlawed. A defendant should be charged with the crime the evidence points to, period. If the evidence isn't there -- move along.
Too many jurys are swayed into conviction. And aquitial.
Just my experience.
Face to face conversation has been a vital part of human society for tens of thousands of years. It is the glue that holds society together. And in ten years, it has been destroyed by the damned Iphone.
We are only beginning to understand how much damage these devices cause.
+1
BUT
I think only weak people let the device take over their life. Like the toastdos commercial where the short fat guy is at a party and all he does is look at his phone.
I can understand there are some cases where missed work can severely hurt financially or just isn't realistic (close the ER for a week, the doc has JD!) but come on... With rights come responsibility, and serving on a jury is one of the few that is imposed relatively equally across all of us.
I would like to one day just for the experience.
I served once and enjoyed it. Interesting to say the least......
If I was ever wrongly accused or being tried for something, I'd want one of you knuckleheads on the jury.
Like minded!
I figure my chances for being summoned so often is the fact that the counties total population is only 35,000 people.
There was another part of this weeks experience that was different even from my attendance to the jury pool 2 years ago. That is the method the county used to pay me. Back then, I received a check in the mail for 22 dollars a couple of months afterwards. This time, I was given a debit card with instructions on how to activate it approx. one week after the trial ended.
I haven't checked it out yet but I'm pretty sure it probably won't pay for any dinners for 2 at any sit down places around here but I will let you all know about my windfall when I get it! 8-)
You get $5 a day.
Are you in a sanctuary state or city?
Tell the politicrap judge that the state picks and chooses the laws they enforce so you will too.
Dismissed in seconds.
I refuse to be part of or endorse by participation, a totally corrupt system
It was trial for a guy who had allegedly raped two 14 year old girls, baby sitter rape deal, so an interesting case.
I was selected as one of 20 jurors, one in the pool. Now, they had to narrow it down to 12.
Funny thing, my brother, and my fiancee, both kept telling me I would never be chosen. Because, they said, I am very intelligent, I have a 4 year degree, and I have a big mouth, I can influence people. They told me that the lawyers want docile people who they can readily influence. Not to say that y'all who have served, are wimps, I am sure that some quality people slip through.
I sat there for 5 hours in that jury box, the DA asked me how much education I had, the defense lawyer asked me some innocuous question, I don't recall what, and then I was dismissed.
Man, I was not happy! I would be a great juror I am fair minded I would move heaven and earth to acquit an innocent man, and I would be glad to sent a guilty man straight to hell.
I was not happy, I went to a lot of trouble, to get paid $15 a day for two days. My brother and girlfriend were right.
Next time I get a jury summons, I will ignore it.
Just making a joke, but it is a real rule of law, and an interesting concept. Look it up.
Inmost place 90+% are pled out. That's because in most cases the defendant is clearly guilty, because they did in fact commit the crime. Very few crimes are true "who dun it" mysteries, unlike TV would like the public to think.
Where I currently live I've receive three jury questionaires from the Circuit court and am exempted due to my career. However my wife has never received one. She recently obtained her concealed carry permit through the Circuit Court, so it will be interesting to see if she gets a jury questionaire now after eleven year.
One of those two sides may have been happy to have you, each gets the same number of challenges.
By the time both the defense and prosecution attorneys were finished the final tally for men to women was 5 men and 8 women. :shock: The 13th juror of coarse was just in case one of us could not finish the case and in the end, using the same lottery drum, one of the women was picked and did not get to go into deliberation.