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Jury Duty


David 'Dr. Troll' Smith

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Funny you mention that; I spent a week on jury selection a month or so ago. I've never served, but observing it from the other end of the table was rather interesting. And I'm fairly certain that I'll never serve on a jury: the minute they hear I have any legal experience my chances of being struck by either party sky rockets.

But I agree with Troll on a philosophical level: everyone should embrace a chance to do jury duty. Despite its moniker, it's your right to serve on a jury.

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Originally posted by David 'Dr. Troll' Smith:

From the questions it looks like traffic court, just like last time.

That's odd, I've never heard of questionnaires going out before you've even been selected for a panel. Must be a difference in jurisdictions.
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I've only been called once in all my years and I was not needed. Oh well. My wife has been summoned three times. Got out of it once for being eight months pregnant and once for child care concern. Third time, like me, she was not needed.

When we get summoned in our county, its a blanket summons. We could get put anywhere.

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I was called once for a city thing. They said it was pretty serious. They ended up not needing me. It was actually a pretty fun experience. It was during the summer so it didn't interfere with school, I was able to take the day off from work (took vacation time so I was paid for the whole day laugh )

They had about 30 computers set up with internet access. So we could watch TV (CNN), watch a movie (Wizard of Oz), or cruise the internet (no porn). I spent the 6 or so hours writting emails to different graduates schools.

Then they thanked me for coming and sent me home. I didn't get a fuel budget though, I live very close to the court houses.

Over all it was fun. I was happy to participate. My brother is lucky, he never has to serve. He's a firefighter and they never use them.

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Conduit: They had about 30 computers set up with internet access. So we could watch TV (CNN), watch a movie (Wizard of Oz), or cruise the internet (no porn). I spent the 6 or so hours writting emails to different graduates schools….
We (sometimes) have a room to ourselves, entertainment consists of watching a blank wall (although you are allowed to bring books). When we don’t have a room to ourselves we sit out in the hallway with the lawyers and the defendants. This is why we aren’t supposed to talk to anyone.

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Singularity:That's odd, I've never heard of questionnaires going out before you've even been selected for a panel. Must be a difference in jurisdictions.
They were pretty generic questions. Mostly ‘can you serve’ stuff. But there was also general background and stuff in there about ‘have you been in a serious traffic accident’.

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Neil Preston:When we get summoned in our county, its a blanket summons. We could get put anywhere.
Not sure. I think it’s the same here, I’d thought that the level of the court I was going to last time dealt with the more serious stuff. We showed up, waited a while for ‘our’ judge to do something, then someone told us all our cases had been settled so we were being loaned to another judge/court.

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Neil Preston: I've only been called once in all my years and I was not needed.
Yeah. Sucks a bit to spend half the day there and then not do anything. I was one of the ‘lucky’ 6 (NOT 12) last time, but there were 30 or so who were passed by and 4 who were bounced.

The Judge bounced one because her husband worked with the defendant. The Defending attorney bounced three people (One badly needed it. She admitted a friend’s child was messed up by a drunk driver but wouldn’t admit to herself that she had 3 nails and a hammer in her purse. If it was obvious to me then it was obvious to everyone in the court, except for herself. She kept claiming she could be ‘impartial’.) I think he ran out of ‘bounces’ right before me because after I sat down the judge didn’t ask him if he wanted any more but she did ask the Prosecutor.

As memory serves, one of the really funny parts was the levels of professionalism (or lack there of) present. It was a drunk driving case.

• The defendant was a University Football player with no neck who easily passed all the physical coordination tests.
• His lawyer was very polished and professional.
• The technician who, days later, tested the guy’s blood had a degree beyond a PhD in processing blood tests.
• The prosecutor had a bad head cold and obviously wasn’t functioning with all oars in the water.
• The arresting officer was a raw rooky and this was his first drunk driving arrest and it didn’t sound like he’d been trained on procedure (or he didn’t follow it or something).
• His supervisor took this incident as a training exercise but couldn’t get the breath test machine to function.
• …so after (I think) 2+ hours of waiting and fooling around with the machine the cops took some of his blood.
• Then the cops paid his impound fee (!?!) and released him.
• I hope they didn’t just let him drive off but they might have.

Final Result: Blood test said he’d had 0.15 when they’d taken it so we had to convict. Whole thing took a day.
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