Have you ever served on jury duty?

what was the case about? If you haven't served do you want to?

the owner of a company had an affair with a secretary and when he decided to break it off she threatened to go to his wife. he allegedly hired someone to off her but the hitman was arrrested on drug possession. he turned state witness on the guy.


we found the owner of the company innocent due to the shakey state witness.

But, was rejected by the defence.

It was a domestic abuse case and the defence bounced me when they found out that I have been unmarried since a divorce 30 years ago.

The guy sitting beside me didn't want to serve and got sent home when he told them that he enjoyed watching Fox News because it was "Fair and Balanced."

:rofl:

I'll have to remember that one

1) Grand jury for a week. Many cases. The most notable was a case of a son who ran over his mother repeatedly with his pick up truck. Luckily, she sustained no life threatening injuries.

2) Trial jury. An employee of a general contractor grabbed a live electrical line on the job and permanently injured the nerves in his arm. This guy was suing every single contractor and sub-contractor involved in the job, stating that the power to the line should have been turned off. We listened to the testimony for about a week, and then we were sent to deliberation. After about 2 hours of deliberation, they came in and told us we could go home, because they had settled.

and not sustain life threatening injuries?


That second trail must have left you with a warm fuzzy feeling. Nothing like wasting a week of your life.

It was like...they lived on a farm, and they got in a drunken argument. He ended up in his pickup truck and side-swiped her or something as she was trying to get to him in the truck. Then, he backed up and ran over her legs, breaking one or both of her legs, then he ran over her legs or arms or something, breaking those bones, etc. Real Jerry Springer shit.

And yes, the trial jury was a waste. It took a week, because there were about 6 lawyers involved because of the amount of people being sued. They put about 5 doctors up on the stand, all the contractors, etc.

Where did it take place?

the case was very straight forward.

The gentleman grabbed an electrical line before he verified that the power to it was shut off. The question was: Was he negligent in grabbing the line, or rather, was one of the contractors negligent in not ensuring that the power was killed?

Tons and tons of testimony...all saying the same thing.

This took place in Upstate NY.

impossible to reach me...

It was a child rape case and I work for the D.A.'s office. I told the court that I could not be fair or impartial.

First time was a civil case (one cop had sued another cop for an injury he sustained in a training class. We heard all of the testimony, then on the last day the lawyers decided that they didn't want a jury to decide the case. Thanks for the time wasting, fellas!).

Second time was a criminal case (purse snatching. One admitted felon and drug dealer/user claimed another felon and drug dealer stole her purse).

I despise jury duty. I know, I know- it's part of the judicial system and a privilege but I still hate it.

The first was a rape case: emotionally draining. After that, the armed robbery trial was almost light relief.

Overall, it wasn't a pleasant experience, but I'd do it again if called, because it's a civic duty.

which I guess explains your sense of civic duty. Here in the US that sense is nearly non-existant.

I've read of concerns that the quality of juries is falling, since so many people find excuses not to serve. I think research on the effects is scant, though, because the deliberations of a jury are considered sacrosanct (if I told you anything about how we reached our decisions, I'd be guilty of contempt of court). All I will say is that I was pleasantly surprised by my fellow jurors. It's not an easy job, but everyone took the responsibility seriously, and did their best.

between those with excuses not to serve and those that are dismissed in the selection process there are only a small percentage that are intelligent and capable of critical thought (you are hearing from that small percentage on this thread).

1. Sat in the jury room at 26th and California all day on a Friday. Read "High Fidelity" - which sucked. Did nt get called since who in their right mind is going to start a jury triial on a nice Friday in the summer.

2. DUI - vehicular homicide. I was striken by the State I suspect.

Multiple charges related to a drive-by shooting.

I thought the prosecution made their case on the weapons charges but dropped the ball on attempted murder.

Many on the jury couldn't even get their minds around the concept that we could convict on some charges and acquit on others. Two jurors were predisposed to convict and two to acquit without regard to the evidence. We even had the "soccer mom" who offered to change her vote if it got her home in time for dinner.

Twelve hours locked in a room with these fools and no verdict.

In the first, a salesman sued the company he was representing for fraud. Attorneys for both sides were so bad I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. Even the judge admonished them for being bad lawyers. The second was a personal injury case -- minor auto accident. We stuck it to the insurance company big time.

A man was arrested. When they took him out of the car at the sheriff's station, the deputy sheriff found a little baggy of drugs under the seat. He claimed that the arrestee had put it there. We the jury wondered how he would've done this while handcuffed. Not guilty.

glad you guys didn't buy into the story. I am surprised the prosecutor even took it to trial.

That's the only reason I could think for that case to be taken to trial.

There was also a charge of possession of a legend drug without a prescription. We were hung on the heroin charges (the vote was 11-1 to convict, but we were hung up by a creepy loser who hung us for no other reason than because for the first time in his miserable life, he had some power, and he abused it.) But we convicted on the legend drug charge, and I'm proud to say it was my argument that swayed us to convict. The defense attorney had opened his case by reminding the jury that the burden of proof was on the prosecution, not the defense. But I told the other members of the jury that I didn't care where the burden of proof lay; if I was a defense attorney with a client charged with possession of a legend drug without a prescription, the very first thing I'd do would be to get on the phone to a doctor and find out if he had a scrip. If the defendant could produce a scrip, the charge would have been removed from the charge sheet. The very fact that no prescription was produced is proof that none existed. The other members of the jury looked at each other and nodded as if to say "Hey, that's right." We convicted. I was pretty proud of that. B-)

That's the one good thing about being a convicted felon, by the way.

matter of fact ...across the nation.

In every jurisdiction where I have resided licensed attorneys or, in one place, known litigation attorneys are automatically excluded from trial jury pools by the Clerk of the Court. It is an experience I would like to have, but likely never will.

A murder trial. The charges were Murder One, Murder Three, and Criminal Conspiracy.

Not guilty on the first two, guilty on the third.


Very interesting process and trial. I would willingly serve again if called.

The first case was drunken driving and they settled somehow. The second case was medical malpractice. They went into a second day of jury selection and I had to report twice. :grr:

I hated every second of it and would do anything to get out of serving.

being on the other end of the process, and knowing also from other people's experiences not to mention the innoncence project, that jury trials are a bunch of shit that a large percentage of the time get the wrong people or wrong finding, i don't believe in the system -- it stinks and needs to be changed

you wouldn't do science by getting a bunch of randoms off the street to vote on whether or not jesus rode into jerusalem on a dinosaur, you would get experts to tell you the likelihood of that

experts in law and forensics should be deciding cases, not people pulled off the street by a lottery

plus every fucking time i've been called i have always had a previous commitment scheduled, if they did the lottery more than 30 days in advance, maybe i wouldn't have already purchased a fucking non refundable air ticket (and almost all air tix sold these days are non refundable)

the law is an ass and the jury system is stupid

all lawyers lie, all corporate plaintiffs lie, and all witnesses are either liars or stressed/confused, and i'm supposed to believe i'm god and can pick out the truth out of all those lies w. no special training

i don't despise the jurors in my case, well, wait a minute, actually i do -- their decision was a mistake and a lie and they prob. go home at night feeling good that they served when they should be ashamed of committing injustice

so that's what i think and prob. what i'll always think -- justice/mercy is for the rich, the rest of us are just sheep to be sheared and the jury system is a way for people to feel good about hurting other people of their own class while kissing up to rich corporate fat asses

:P :hi:

1st time was a speeding ticket

last time was an exotic dancer who was trying to locate her "client's" address rear ended another car
and then drove off.
More interesting than the speeding ticket. They never said who the client was....

beyond that I didn't know they would have them with out the accused being there

the defendent was a lawyer as i remember so go figure

I've also been sent home from the jury box once and not gotten into a courtroom twice. I get called a lot.

It's an interesting process, but the 1st degree murder trial was pretty stressful.

federal civil case (Charles Keating) and a local drug possesion case. Jury found defendants guilty in both cases.

I learned a lot about that paper money world. And anybody that thinks accounting is boring --- man that is so wrong --- those people determine the fate of the world!

One guilty, one not.

Now I just get out of jury duty by pointing out that I'm bipolar. It's worked both times now. I knew there had to be something good about being crazy.

Got called locally recently, but was excused as they did not need me to report.

I was alternate juror on an open-and-shut DUI case.

but I went to skool instead.