Jury Duty

[Matt1735]

Been an Arkansas resident for 15 months, and already won the lottery.

Sitting in this morning to see how it works. From the paperwork, looks like I'm on call the entire month of April 2022.

 

[Neutral Corner]

Get a copy of an interesting and thick book. Unless you are lucky enough not to be put on a panel and get released, you'll spend a lot of time sitting and waiting. "Shogun" got me through most of a seven day trial. Nowadays I guess it's a well charged phone and an external battery pack.

I was called three times in eleven years in Houston. We moved to Alabama and I did not get called for thirty years. I was in the jury pool for the first case to go to court after they re-opened post the initial Covid wave, but wasn't seated. I was home in a couple of hours, completely painless.

 

[Azrael]

One of the great privileges of citizenship.

And once deliberations begin, free lunch!

 

[Matt1735]

In arkansas.com you are basically on call for 4 months. However in my county, they only have you obligated for 1. So my time is the month of April. We'll see if I get called for a trial in 3 months or so

 

[Neutral Corner]

One of the great privileges of citizenship.

And once deliberations begin, free lunch!

And the bailiff who walks you out to lunch knows all the best restaurants around the courthouse.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Get a copy of an interesting and thick book. Unless you are lucky enough not to be put on a panel and get released, you'll spend a lot of time sitting and waiting. "Shogun" got me through most of a seven day trial. Nowadays I guess it's a well charged phone and an external battery pack.

I was called three times in eleven years in Houston. We moved to Alabama and I did not get called for thirty years. I was in the jury pool for the first case to go to court after they re-opened post the initial Covid wave, but wasn't seated. I was home in a couple of hours, completely painless.

Books can help get you out of jury duty! Three years ago, I was called for duty and took along a copy of Terry Pluto's oral history of the ABA. I'm getting examined by the judge, he sees the book which has Dr. J on the cover and notes he was Doc's class at UMass. He then noted my name, and said he'd been a loyal Herald sports section reader for years. Prosecution and defense had a race to the bench to see who get me tossed out first.

 

[Driftwood]

I was in the federal jury pool for nine months once. I had to report for jury selection three times. I was never seated.
It seems defense lawyers don't like men who actually show up wearing a suit and use big vocabulary words during the process.

 

[Neutral Corner]

I was really glad for that copy of Shogun. There were a number of contentious things around the case, so we were repeatedly sent back to the jury room to cool our heels while the lawyers and judge hashed out which witnesses and what evidence would be allowed. I was good with that as the jury box had oak benches similar to church pews, which got awfully hard after a few hours.

 

[micropolitan guy]

Funny this would pop up, six years ago today I served on a jury in a DUII case. Found him innocent in less than 20 minutes. It was a fun experience. I was foreperson, so I got to announce the verdict!

 

[Monday Morning Sportswriter]

I spent three weeks on a civil trial that was fascinating, watching all of the arguments boil down to this question: Was a dentist negligent when he failed to X-Ray a patient who complained of tooth pain.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Get a copy of an interesting and thick book. Unless you are lucky enough not to be put on a panel and get released, you'll spend a lot of time sitting and waiting. "Shogun" got me through most of a seven day trial. Nowadays I guess it's a well charged phone and an external battery pack.

I was called three times in eleven years in Houston. We moved to Alabama and I did not get called for thirty years. I was in the jury pool for the first case to go to court after they re-opened post the initial Covid wave, but wasn't seated. I was home in a couple of hours, completely painless.

I would caution about the well-charged phone. Both times when I was called for jury duty, we were told explicitly to turn our phones off and that if we had them on, we could be cited for contempt. I echo the book idea though.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Books can help get you out of jury duty! Three years ago, I was called for duty and took along a copy of Terry Pluto's oral history of the ABA. I'm getting examined by the judge, he sees the book which has Dr. J on the cover and notes he was Doc's class at UMass. He then noted my name, and said he'd been a loyal Herald sports section reader for years. Prosecution and defense had a race to the bench to see who get me tossed out first.

I always get exceptions used on me.

In general, I don't want to sit on civil court juries. But I'd do a criminal case. I do see it as a civic duty, and I'd treat it the way I would want someone deliberating if it was me sitting there with my fate in other people's hands.

One criminal case when I was on jury duty, the defense attorney used a quick exception on me when he heard what I do. I watched a little and was convinced he wanted a jury of idiots and people who don't speak English. The sad thing is that if I ever do deliberate a criminal case, I am going to be more sympathetic to a presumption of innocence than I think most people are.

The one case I sat on years ago, was a civil case. A group of kids on motorcycles were zipping around a neighborood, riding on sidewalks, etc., none of them with licenses. A nun was backing out of a driveway and hit one of the kids. And the kid was suing her and the church. Her star witness was a half blind priest who said he saw the whole thing from a pretty good distance away (yet he couldn't see the tip of his nose in the courtroom).

The deliberations didn't start out in too promising of a way, but luckily it didn't take as long as I was afraid it might at first, and we didn't give the kid anything. His lawyer had a hang dog look and looked just dejected when he realized there wasn't going to be a pay day at the expense of the Catholic Church.

I was questioned for another civil case once, and it was a supermarket slip and fall or something like that, and I was busy at work and wanted no part of it. I hate the people who say dumb things to try to get off of juries, and I have seen more than one judge lace into someone in my jury duty experiences, so I wasn't doing the whole, "My mother's sister's aunt was once in a supermarket, and I don't think I can be objective." But when the attorney asked me if I would have any problem being fair toward him and his case, I said something like, "No, I don't think so. I mean, you remind me a lot of this other ambulance chaser I see on late night TV sometimes with a flashing 800 number, but that shouldn't get in the way of my objectivity." He used an exception on me.