Jury Duty

[Bike Writer]

Thanks for the reports, this is a Michigan case so now that your duty is completed can you post any link to the news story about this case or the crime that caused it?

[hebe]

Jury duty is definitely an experience. When I did mine the defendant was convicted, and his brothers mouthed abuse at every single juror as we left. The entire jury ended up being locked in a room whilst court officials checked that the brothers had left the site. I'm really hoping not to be called again for a while as sorting childcare would be a nightmare.

We had one day when the defendant didn't turn up (his mum phoned to say that he'd had an allergic reaction to a skin cream) so we all got sent home again. It's a good thing to do, I think, but it can be hugely inconvenient. Which I know is nothing compared to the importance of Justice, but I think most jurors end up relying on goodwill from someone, be that employers or childcare providers.

[limewave]

We had one day when the defendant didn't turn up (his mum phoned to say that he'd had an allergic reaction to a skin cream) so we all got sent home again. It's a good thing to do, I think, but it can be hugely inconvenient. Which I know is nothing compared to the importance of Justice, but I think most jurors end up relying on goodwill from someone, be that employers or childcare providers.

There was a lot of waiting around. Fortunately the Judge was really good about giving us breaks. Our defendant was already in prison on another charge, we didn't need to worry about him not showing up.

Here is one article. And here is one about the defendant's lawyer I found interesting.

[Bike Chick]

I'm so glad you had a positive experience serving as a juror and that you shared that with us. Most people are hesitant to serve on a jury but I would encourage everyone who gets summoned for jury duty to serve.

[limewave]

So now the major inconvenience is playing in. I outsourced some work because Jury duty was butting right up to a week of vacation. And now the out-sourced work is going not as planned and turning into a huge disaster. Now we are having to delay vacation. Seems like every time we plan a get-a-away some disaster strikes

[hebe]

oh no! I hope you don't have to wait too much longer for your break.

We get very little choice here about jury service. If you're summonsed you prettty much have to do it. If your deferment is accepted you get absolutely no choice the second time you're called. I guess that in the US policy is decided per state?

[Blueberry]

In my state, it varies by County. The Clerk of Court can excuse you, etc. Some have different policies.

[PscyclePath]

Several years ago I was detailed to be one of the members of the panel that heard all general courts martial for the area served by Mannheim, Germany. I wound up going over there around twice a month for a wide variety of cases. The detail lasted a year and a half, so I got a lot of experience in "jury duty". We heard a lot of drug cases, rape, two murder trails, etc. One that I fondly remember was the trial of one soldier on assault and battery charges for beating up another soldier in the barracks at Baumholder Training Area. It was a pretty open-and-shut case, until they brought out the last witness... the victim. After meeting him, we went back into the jury room and came out about an hour later with an acquittal. Some folks just get what they had coming to them ;-)

Courts martial are different from jury trials, in that we as panelists had the opportunity to ask questions not posed by any of the attorneys, by writing them down on a form and submitting them to the judge, who would then ask the question from the bench. And there are no hung juries, we went back after hearing all testimony and got one vote on each charge... it took 2/3rds of the panel voting "guilty" in order to convict, any vote less than 2/3rds was an acquittal unless we were able to consider a lesser charge for the same offense.

It did cure me of wanting to sit on any more juries; a standard answer in voir dire now is that "I'm not sitting here this long in order to turn some rascal loose."