3 Likes
What is really important about today? I turn 70 today. People over 70 can be excused from jury duty around here. No more long, disagreeable, pre-dawn, drives downtown to the circuit court building. Yay!
Steve
7 Likes
Won’t be till Saturday
1 Like
I DEFY anyone to listen to more than 20 seconds of this song without bobbing your head. It cannot be done! LOL
This song is also a great lesson for aspiring songwriters… Never let meaningful lyrics interfere with the groove.
WTH
2 Likes
73 here and I have to show up for jury duty next month. Served on a manslaughter jury years ago, so I think I should be exempt. That was enough stress for 1 lifetime.
I think I’ll “forget” to wear my hearing aids and go full Emily Litella.
By the way, happy barfday. Hope you don’t regurgitate too much.
What?
Oh, it’s your birthday.
Never mind.
4 Likes
Hey Steve. Happy birthday. Shortly after I turned 65 I received a jury summons. I called the county courthouse folks and let them know I was 65. I was told not to worry about it and they would fix it. Turned 70 and the same thing happened. Turned 75 and again another jury summons. I turn 80 at the end of January. Who knows if they fixed it yet?
I think they pull the jury pools from the voter registrations. Again who knows?
My problem with jury duty is every time I go I get picked. I’ve been to traffic court, I’ve been to criminal court, you name it and I get picked. It used to be a real PITA. Oh, yea, and the $6 per day wouldn’t even pay parking in this day and age.
ImAGolfer
2 Likes
Wow, I didn’t realize how young you were! Welcome to the 7’s club.
JimA
3 Likes
What’s all this i hear about ___________
eagle rights
saving Soviet jewelry
busting children
or
3 Likes
Dear Steve
1 Like
As best as I can tell, in the case of the circuit court in metro Detroit, you need to ask to be excused due to age every time you receive a summons.
They don’t draw jurors from voter registrations in Michigan, because so many people never register. The courts use driver’s license records.
Steve
1 Like
Happy birthday! 
How often did you get called for jury duty??!!!?? I’m a decade younger and have been called perhaps 4 times so far and served on a jury only once.
3 Likes
When the circuit court in Kalamazoo found me, they were on me like ugly on a mule. Received their “juror qualification” questionnaire in the mail every summer. Once I appeared for jury duty, I was excused for a year, so it was only every other year I had to head downtown to the court. I don’t recall how many times they tagged me between 87 and 96, the period I lived at that address. I’m thinking 3, maybe 4.
Metro Detroit seems to have a much larger jury pool. It was several years after I moved into the area that they found me. Even then, they only tagged me about once every six years. First time was in 2006, then again, right after I retired, in early 2012. The third time was for the district court, a much shorter drive than the circuit court in downtown Detroit. That was probably 2018. If the pattern held, they would not have come after me again until 2024, but I was not betting the bank on that.
Steve
Sheesh! I am hanging out with old people.
Happy Birthday, Steve!
2 Likes
I have had few problems. First notice was in 1980s - 1990s. Have to show up daily for two weeks or until sent home. Got notice, so waited until I was to go in. While waiting, got another notice: Jury duty called off. Courts were being refurbished. Many trials delayed. So, no jury duty.
Once called, not eligible to serve again for four years.
Second notice was maybe 2010 (or earlier). Went in, sat for 8 hrs per day for five days. Second week, sat for 8 hrs for two days, then hit jury jackpot on third day. Selected for jury in early afternoon, and we went up to courtroom. Judge then told us the defense atty had made an error and the trial was being postponed for weeks or longer. So, no need for triat at this time. “Thank you and goodbye”. We went back downstairs and all remaining potential jurors were released for the rest of the week. Nothing since and not going to worry about it.
That is extremely inefficient. In Michigan, the drill has always been for everyone to report on Monday. All the juries for that week are selected on that day, and everyone else is released.
Steve
Whoa!!! That’s quite a lot. I thought that many places have a rule that they can only call you once every 5 years. I may be mistaken (could be an urban myth).
Now that I am retired, I would be willing to go more often. I found serving on a jury to be interesting and even entertaining in some respects. Of course, it was only 2 days (really 1 1/2 days), I might (would!) feel differently about a trial that goes on for weeks.
Which means no more jury trials can be created/started until the next week. Waste of court and lawyer time ($$$) while waiting until the next Monday.
With our system, when a trial needs a jury, it is almost immediately available to begin. Minimal wasted time for court or Defendant.
The trials are usually scheduled weeks, if not months, in advance. The courts pretty much know what they are doing. Recall, certain upcoming criminal trials, that are being widely reported, have been scheduled in early next year. Every time I have been in a pool that was escorted to the courtroom for the actual jurors to be questioned and selected, the judge says at the outset how long the trial is expected to last. There is no hurry up and wait after Monday.
That is the only “wait” part, on Monday. We cool our heels in the jury room, while the parties make a last stab at a plea bargain. By noon, decisions start being made. For the cases that settled, the jury pools are dismissed. For the ones going to trial, the pools are marched into the courtroom for selection.
All this talk about trials gives me an “irresistible impulse” to post a clip from one of my favorite trial movies “Anatomy of a Murder”. For those who don’t know, the book, and movie, are based on a real case in Michigan. The author of the book, who was defense counsel in the case, later sat on the Michigan Supreme Court. In this approximately 5 minute scene, George C Scott as the big shot prosecutor from Lansing, violates the first rule of testimony in open court “never ask a question, unless you are sure of the answer”.
1 Like