My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

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My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by Ryan »

Yep.

GO PATRIOTS
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by brian »

I was on a jury a couple of years ago, just a quick two-day trial. It's one of the more interesting experiences of my life. I wouldn't want to be on a 6 month murder trial or anything, but I never understood the attitude of hating on jury duty.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by A_B »

I was on federal jury duty for 22 months. You are only supposed to be on for a year, but I got waivers for being in school. So summers and christmas break, yup. Sat on three trials. All were 2 days. All were somewhat interesting, but certainly not what I would call fun.

It was $40 a day for the federal, so the two times I got called but didn't have to serve it was nice to just get $40 free dollars for one hour of sitting there and then being dismissed (both times because I was young and male).
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by EdRomero »

I loved being on jury duty. It helped that I despised my job at the time.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by sancarlos »

Some years back, I was called for jury duty, right when they were trying to seat the Scott Peterson murder trial jury, at the same court. I about crapped my pants when I received the notice, knowing that trial was going to go on for awhile. Luckily, I was being called for a different case, and I never even came close to being selected.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by mister d »

Foreman. No big deal.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by Johnnie »

I've been summoned to jury duty twice. Once by the state of Massachusetts while living in Louisiana. Luckily the card had a "check here if you are active duty military and are not serving in Massachusetts" option. The other time was for Arizona while living in Arizona. Fortunately, I'm a Nevada resident and could check the appropriate block there. However, if I were an Arizona resident, I believe I would have had to serve. Each state is different, so military service shields me in nearly all circumstances.

(And I'm not registered to vote. So that theory is it the window.)
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by Bensell »

I've never been called so I'm guessing posting this will trigger my selection sometime this year.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by wlu_lax6 »

Bensell wrote:I've never been called so I'm guessing posting this will trigger my selection sometime this year.
me too
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by Ryan »

Dodged it two weeks ago. Not so much yesterday. I avoided the horrendous infant abuse case in the next courtroom over and landed on a civil trial that, while I of course can't get into specifics, should be a doozy per the basics laid out by Judge Judy Wapner.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by howard »

Who knows? Maybe, you were kidnapped, tied up, taken away and held for ransom.

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Over a long time ago
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by duff »

I am still waiting. Mrs. Duff has been called three times in the past 15 years. She dreads it. I look forward to the day.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by mister d »

Its like Hawaii. Great once, never want to do it again.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by sancarlos »

Funny this comes up. Because, just yesterday, I received a jury summons in the mail. And, my wife also recently received one. Mine is for a month from now. My experience has been that if I sit tight and, as they require, phone in the night before the scheduled date - I very likely will be told I'm not needed. But, if you ask for a deferral you get it, but go to the very top of the list for the next date.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by Giff »

Free day off work, man. I wanted to volunteer for the grand jury when I was there.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by DC47 »

I suppose I'll do my duty when called. But, for a friend, what are the most economical phrases you can utter or write on a form that will get you off?
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by sancarlos »

I plan on mentioning that my brother is a trial lawyer.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by DC47 »

Nice. Credible and perhaps fatal in every venue. You might need a back-up just in case they are desperate and think you are a reasonable person.

Kind of like during the Vietnam era draft it was advisable to wear women's underwear and carry a tab of acid just in case the track marks and the 59-point IQ score were overlooked at the induction center.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by DSafetyGuy »

I recommend spending all the time where other jurors are being questioned trying to figure out any life experiences/relationships that have a chance of getting you out of that particular case instead of zoning out. My most recent visit ended when I was able to come up with a personal relationship with someone who had been in a worker's comp case since that was the content of the case.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by Ryan »

Oh definitely. 2 weeks ago, both potential cases involved the police (a city payroll dispute and a DUI) and basically everyone went up and said "I know a cop!". It took 50 names to fill the seats for the city employee one.

The trial I'm on had very little in the way of potential snags and from what I could hear, the few people that were excused were either in a similar line of work as the defendant or had a scheduling conflict.

My overall feeling so far is that I'd still somehow rather be in the office than listen to dry testimony for 3 days with a bunch of strangers (or run the risk of serving on a really ugly case) but the process itself is interesting to be a part of.

Also, the juror sitting next to me has a certain syndrome that I will refrain from disclosing but if he wants to just blurt it out, I can't stop him. That'll be fun.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by mister d »

"AIDS!"
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by devilfluff »

Strangely, I just got a jury summons yesterday. 5/4/15, Gloucester County court

It's been 10 years since my last summons.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by Brontoburglar »

mister d wrote:"AIDS!"
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by The Sybian »

Ryan wrote:
Also, the juror sitting next to me has a certain syndrome that I will refrain from disclosing but if he wants to just blurt it out, I can't stop him. That'll be fun.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by rass »

My wife just got a summons today. First time in almost 11 years in this county.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by DC47 »

Ryan wrote:Also, the juror sitting next to me has a certain syndrome that I will refrain from disclosing but if he wants to just blurt it out, I can't stop him. That'll be fun.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by tennbengal »

rass wrote:My wife just got a summons today. First time in almost 11 years in this county.
Mine got a summons on Tuesday.

I think it's a plot.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by rass »

tennbengal wrote:
rass wrote:My wife just got a summons today. First time in almost 11 years in this county.
Mine got a summons on Tuesday.

I think it's a plot.
Unless my recollection of a conversation from a years ago drunken night is off, I think they have the same first name, too. You might be on to something...
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by tennbengal »

rass wrote:
tennbengal wrote:
rass wrote:My wife just got a summons today. First time in almost 11 years in this county.
Mine got a summons on Tuesday.

I think it's a plot.
Unless my recollection of a conversation from a years ago drunken night is off, I think they have the same first name, too. You might be on to something...
Or...we are married to the same woman. Swamp all-time plot twist.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by devilfluff »

Mine got a call last week, for the week after me
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by Ryan »

OK, that was actually slightly fulfilling and, once we were able to deliberate, interesting. I still stand by my (and anyone else's) trepidation upon getting the notice.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by mister d »

Yeah? I found the lawyer machinations and process itself interesting but the deliberations are the single biggest cynicism increasing event of my life.

Were you surprised at how much it was like TV? Like not the exact drama, but much more so than I expected.

(Mine might have been predisposed to being on the dramatic side, it was a lawyer-turned-politician vs lawyer domestic abuse case. 2nd paragraph is about all I can find of it.)
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by Ryan »

mister d wrote:Yeah? I found the lawyer machinations and process itself interesting but the deliberations are the single biggest cynicism increasing event of my life.

Were you surprised at how much it was like TV? Like not the exact drama, but much more so than I expected.
There was an 8-4 split on one of the two defendants being liable (the other was immediately unianimously found not liable) where I was on the majority side and we (mostly me and this other guy) had to spend a few hours explaining the actual laws in front of us to the holdouts. It was not contentious and after having to silently ignore each other for 3 days, the deliberation was a welcome change.

I definitely had a similar overwhelming feeling that everything, from the lawyers to the witnesses to the various personalities that made up the jury, was textbook TV courtroom. I was really upset that, as this was a civil case, we didn't get to go back in when the verdict was presented to the parties. Those lawyers, especially, had become characters and I wanted to see the aftermath.

Will discuss the details whenever, if anyone cares.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by mister d »

That sounds nice. I was 27 or 28 and the foreman and got into a shouting match with a guy twice my age who was positive he cracked the case by finding "mismatched handwriting" on a check's amount and memo lines that the defendant had never contested he wrote. And I got to sit on the witness stand and get interviewed when I realized I knew a character witness as a bartender from a place by my house.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by Ryan »

I volunteered to be foreman because I could tell from the (illegal) way in which others were discussing things prior to deliberation that we were headed down the path of irrelevant non-evidence and ignorance of the specific way the law needed to be interpreted.

But some old guy was picked even though he didn't want to do it.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by rass »

If there was ever a time to play the Jeopardy Champ card...
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by mister d »

"Who is ... the only right choice for foreman?"

We didn't get to vote, it happened in selection. I was the last one seated and the last seat was the foreman chair.
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by sancarlos »

rass wrote:If there was ever a time to play the Jeopardy Champ card...
Image
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by brian »

mister d wrote:Yeah? I found the lawyer machinations and process itself interesting but the deliberations are the single biggest cynicism increasing event of my life.
I'm going to go ahead and echo this. I was amazed at how people want to use "facts" not presented as evidence in the deliberation and 100 other stupid things like asking the judge if they could find the guy guilty of a lesser charge (no).
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Re: My Wish to Sail Through Life Without Serving on a Jury

Post by Keg »

I still have never been a part of a jury. It helped that I was registered to vote in my parents town (until recently) and I only went to pick up my mostly junk mail once every couple of months.
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