I’ve been called once and served once - almost 30 years ago in Illinois. Mrs. Goofy has never been called and she’s angry about it. Seems she wants to do her part and they never ask.
“. Seems she wants to do her part and they never ask.”
I was on jury duty once over my working years, I actually kind of enjoyed it. I got paid from my employer while on it, so it was not a financial burden. It was my 1st time watching lawyers operate in a courtroom, and it left an impression. It was also the 1st time I watched someone try to legally get paid for not really any good reason. The main thing I came out of it with was that I really never wanted to be on the wrong side of the law, but if someone tried to take advantage of me, the legal system, and a jury made up of peers, works. So I was happy to serve on jd.
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I’ve served twice. One was a child abuse case. The child was 18 months old. The second time was the attempted rape on an Alzheimer’s resident in a nursing home. Though I consider it my civic duty to serve I can’t say I was happy to be there. The testimony was tough to hear.
What still amazes me is when we went into deliberations there were jurists that wanted to acquit the defendants. Both times the first vote was 2 to 10 for acquittal. After several hours we agreed on guilty verdicts. The first case was guilty on 2 of the 3 charges. The second case was guilty on 1 of 2 charges. I personally felt each defendant was guilty on all of the charges, but I compromised so we could reach a verdict.
If you are erudite and clever enough, you can sometimes convince your fellow jurors to convict on the “big” charges and acquit on the smaller charges by slowly getting them to think in terms of numbers of charges (rather than number of years). Say there are 3 charges, let’s convict them on only 1 of them to be fair … meanwhile, the one is a 30-year sentence while the other two are 5-year ones. This can work even if you aren’t the jury foreperson. Likewise in the other direction, if you are convinced the defendant is not guilty then you can do similar “let’s convict him on 2 minor charges, but acquit on all the big charges”.
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The child abuse case had 3 charges. I don’t remember the legal terms, but the first charge was child abuse. The second charge was aggravated assault. This charge had 8 levels of assault we could consider. The 3rd charge was child abuse again, but from an incident that occurred months before the injury causing the child permanent injury. I and one other jurist wanted him convicted on all 3 counts. We compromised and found him guilty on the 1st child abuse charge, insisted that the aggravated assault charge be on the most serious level, and we let the 2nd child abuse charge go, finding him not guilty.
The rape case was similar. I don’t remember how the 2 charges read other than they focused on the attempted rape. The argument from the jurists that wanted to acquit was how do we know the nursing home aide was going to rape this Alzheimer patient. The fact that the man had the women’s diaper off, his pants were at his ankles, and he had an arousement (TMF filter) wasn’t enough to convince these people what the next step was. I used some pretty graphic words on what every male’s next move would be with a women with those circumstances. Then some of them wanted to blame the Alzheimer victim. They said she didn’t resist. They really said that. It was hard for me to control my words. After about 6 hours of me and another jurist not budging, we compromised on the 1 charge guilty and 1 charge innocent. I felt it was the best I was going to get.
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I was on three juries and two of them were dismissed with thanks at the last moment as a plea deal was reached in the criminal case (with punishment close to what I thought warranted) and the civil case vanished with an undisclosed settlement (i felt used and manipulated after three tedious weeks of stupid testimony).
The third was a very complicated Los Angeles gang violence murder case (three cars involved, contradictory police and other testimony), and our jury was close to hung in favor of acquittal 11 - 1. We finally established that the hold out for conviction was a woman who simply wanted anyone with any gang affiliation locked up forever. After two days of fruitless polite argument I and one other juror too the woman on full bore, me with observations that her stance was itself illegal and the other juror simply yelling at her for five minute three inches from her nose. We acquitted.
Upon returning our verdict, to our stunned surprise, we were informed that there had been a trial going on simultaneously in another courtroom two doors down in the same courthouse of the other crucially involved party, and that those jurors had almost simultaneously come to the exact same conclusions about who to believe who to disregard what came down and who was guilty – their accused, as they also were convinced that our accused was innocent and had been the party attacked.
Made me feel good about the Los Angeles DA’s office and justice system.
david fb
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My mother pre-retirement was excused from jury duty for several decades. The system thought she did not know English.
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I really thought I would not be chosen for the rape case. One of the questions they asked when picking the jury was if we knew the defendant, victim, lawyers, law enforcement, or the judge. I raised my hand. I knew the judge. He had been my attorney before he became a judge and we lived in the same neighborhood and saw each other occasionally. Occasionally might have been a stretch. It was more like every other year when we had fall clean up on the creek that goes through the neighborhood.
Anyway, they asked me if I thought he was a good judge. I said I didn’t know; I had never been before him, and that I intended to keep it that way. They all chuckled and then I was selected.
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I’ve been on 2 juries, one was a manslaughter charge. The jury room got quite heated. The DA wanted 1st degree and, after 2 full days, we finally agreed on 3rd degree. I though the defendant was guilty, but I was willing to compromise on the degree of guilt.
However, if I was on a jury and believed the defendant was not guilty, there’s no way I’d agree to a lesser charge just to compromise. I’d stick to my guns. But that’s just me.
I’m told I can be a stubborn cuss. Mainly by my wife.
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I’ve been on juries for 2 cases and a defendant on one.
The first jury case was a Superior Court case where the defendant was suing a well-known elevator company for faulty equipment which caused her (and her husband) pain and injury. They were suing for big bucks. Throughout the trial, the elevator company could not be deemed negligent as the service records for the elevators in the building were either all up to date, or for other elevators in the building that had service call issues, but not the one that the defendant was riding on… Many of the jurors wanted to give this “poor man and woman” lots of money and find the elevator company negligent, but me and another juror held out for days until we were able to convince our fellow jurors that you just don’t give money away because you feel like it.
The second case was a District Court case in which a middle aged male neighbor was accused of raping a 12 year old when she slept over the neighbor’s house. This happened on numerous occasions over the course of a number of years. This was a long and ugly trial, and we jurors were pretty quick to decide that the accused was guilty on all counts. Quite a creep I’d say, and we sent him to the pokey for quite a while.
I was a defendant in a civil case which went to District Court on a “slip and fall” accident that happened on our rental property in which the plaintiff tried to associate a miscarriage with the slip and fall - hoping to get millions in a “baby death” case. I was being represented by attorneys from our insurance company and placed on the stand. The plaintiff’s attorney tried to make me out as a slumlord landlord but our attorney had put together a strong case of probability that the plaintiff may have actually tripped over her dog that was on a leash at the time of the accident. We broke for a lunch break and upon returning from lunch, the plaintiffs had settled with my insurance company. I don’t know how much they got, but they didn’t get much. My wife and I decided then and there that we would exit the rental property business.
I’ve been impressed with the court system here in MA. I think that they really do try and bring justice to both parties - although I’m sure not everyone would agree.
'38Packard
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The other night I was talking to my 88-year-old neighbor. She was getting out of her car. She had a bottle of red wine in a bag. She had not been drinking. I was outside the garage. She backed up a step as if into something. She thought it was me. In fact, it was an old upright suitcase she had on her side of the garage. She fell down on her behind. I helped her up by going through the other side of the garage and holding both her hands. She said something about thinking I was behind her when she tripped over the suitcase. I corrected her. The next day the suitcase was gone.
I have long admired her for her age. She was okay that night.
We have been neighbors for some 23.5 years.
A terrible neighbor would make a legal mess of anything. She was okay very fortunately. I will miss her when she is gone.
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Wow! Y’all’s jury duty systems feel positively antiquated. 
Here in the big city we’ve got this wonderful invention called the telephone. When you are on jury duty, you call in to see if you need to report in person. If you don’t, you call in the next day until your 4 days are done. If you do have to report, you either serve on a jury or you are done.
No wasting of multiple days sitting in a jury room with little or nothing to do.
—Peter
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Telephone!?
In my county, we have this thing called the internet! When I had to report last year I wanted to delay a few weeks. Went online, picked a week, then the day before I checked if I had to report the next day or not for a few days.
Mike
He, he, he… Guess who just received a Jury Summons for municipal court? Like I said in an earlier post I received one when I turned 65, 70, and 75. I’ll turn 80 in January so it looks like they are up to their same old tricks (i.e.: We’ll take care of it). Anyway I went on line to their website and entered my Juror number and Pin number and the site sucked them up but didn’t say boo or squat as to whether or not I was exempted. I then tried calling the phone number they had posted. In typical city government fashion a recording came on telling me to call back during business hours (8 to 5, it was between those hours). It then told me not to leave a message as no one monitors that number. Then it said to leave a message. Huh?
Anyway, I ain’t pursuing it any further.
I was kind’a concerned because I subscribe to ‘Informed Delivery’ from the USPS and knew I was going to receive an envelope from the City of Houston Municipal Courts and I thought maybe I ran a red light or something. We did away with red light tickets several years ago (thank God) but I think Sugar Land still has them. Anyway turned out to be a Jury Summons.
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