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 kronk wrote:

efarrer wrote:
Do your duty.
Show up.
Spend the afternoon with the other potential jurors and go home when you find out you aren't needed.

Of the 4 times I've been called in, this happened 3 of them.

When a defendant walks into a court room during the jury selection process and sees 30-80 annoyed jurors, they sometimes decide to plea. Same with civil cases and settling.

I don't know how the Canadian courts work, but for one of the times I was not picked as a juror I had these questions (paraphrased, and 10-15 years ago):

Question: If this is the third time this defendant will have been convicted of possession with the intent to distribute, would you give him the maximum sentence of 12 years.
Answer from me: Yes.

Question: If the case comes down to the defendant's word versus a policeman's word, would you convict this defendant?
Answer from me: No. Never.

I'm not sure which question got me kicked off, or both. However, they were honest answers that both sides needed to know. Yes, I'm willing to send someone to jail for a long time for what I consider a major crime. No, I won't do it on a case of he said, she said, even if one person is the pope himself. Do your fething job and collect evidence.

It was the second one. Testimony *is* evidence. Sometimes the only evidence! (If a police officer pulls someone over for running a red light, sees they have a warrant, arrests them and finds a bag of coke in their pocket, what other evidence would you demand to prove possession?) If you will not even consider it, you are not following the law, so it is a strike for cause. Likewise, all witness start out the same. You can't give bonus points (or penalties) to anyone just based on job, title, being (or not being) the defendant, etc. You can use their training, experience, prior untruthfulness, etc. to weigh credibility, but you don't know any of that until they testify. Anything else is an improper assumption.

If the ONLY evidence is "I saw him do X" and "No, I didn't do X", then you're going to have a hard time getting me to send anyone to jail. And as a Prosecutor, you should be thankful for my honesty.

Do you have the drugs you said he had? No?

Do you have photographic or other evidence that the drugs even existed? No?

You just saw him toss "something" in the river?

"Not guilty. When is lunch?"

 kronk wrote:
If the ONLY evidence is "I saw him do X" and "No, I didn't do X", then you're going to have a hard time getting me to send anyone to jail. And as a Prosecutor, you should be thankful for my honesty.

Do you have the drugs you said he had? No?

Do you have photographic or other evidence that the drugs even existed? No?

You just saw him toss "something" in the river?

"Not guilty. When is lunch?"

This is why trial lawyers hate actually doing trials. The jury is not there to determine if the defendant goes to jail or not. The jury is there to determine guilty or not guilty. The judge determines if a sentence of incarceration is necessary. It has gotten so bad that if it isn't on video it didn't really happen in most peoples' minds. But when it is captured on video we have motion hearings to exclude the video because the defense doesn't want the jury to see the truth of what happened, regardless of if their rights were infringed upon or not.

Most jurors don't want to be there, and will return a verdict of guilty quickly just to get out of there quickly or the opposite, especially in victimless crimes. Every trial attorney has a case where the jury came back and kicked them squarely in the nuts. Mine was a DUI where a guy passed out on a highway in the opposite lane with his foot on the brake. He admitted to drinking, and refused the blow. All caught on video. The defense attorney did such a horrible job during cross examination of the officer a juror fell asleep. Not guilty. The bailiff came up to me after the verdict and was more p!ssed than me. Those guys have seen so much they can usually call it. The verdict came in right before the end of the day when the judge would have told them they'd have to come back. Next DUI trial I had a girl who just barely rolled a stop sign. Guilty. I had two people on my jury that had DUI convictions. I have no idea how I won. Our system is a major crap shoot.

 Monkey Tamer wrote:

This is why trial lawyers hate actually doing trials. The jury is not there to determine if the defendant goes to jail or not. The jury is there to determine guilty or not guilty. The judge determines if a sentence of incarceration is necessary

This is absolutely not always true. In the trial I served as a Juror, we set the sentence. as well.

 kronk wrote:

 Monkey Tamer wrote:

This is why trial lawyers hate actually doing trials. The jury is not there to determine if the defendant goes to jail or not. The jury is there to determine guilty or not guilty. The judge determines if a sentence of incarceration is necessary

This is absolutely not always true. In the trial I served as a Juror, we set the sentence. as well.

Apologies. Let me clarify. In Illinois the jury does not decide the sentence in a criminal trial. That is a matter for a judge at a sentencing hearing. As for other states I have no idea.

It was Texas. We like to do our own hangings, thank you!

States do vary, I see. Didn't know that about IL, for example.

Not their best sketch, but appropriate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A_jeCAfn0E

Also, the one time I went they selected 6 people out of like 200. Your odds of being on a jury are honestly pretty low.

 kronk wrote:
If the ONLY evidence is "I saw him do X" and "No, I didn't do X", then you're going to have a hard time getting me to send anyone to jail. And as a Prosecutor, you should be thankful for my honesty.

Do you have the drugs you said he had? No?

Do you have photographic or other evidence that the drugs even existed? No?

You just saw him toss "something" in the river?

"Not guilty. When is lunch?"

Yep, the State should have been very appreciative that you were honest! There is no wrong answer, after all. I was just answering the question of which question got you struck. I would point out that in Texas, not having the drugs is a major issue because the State also has to prove that they were actually illegal drugs. Tests sometimes show that while the Defendant thought he had bought cocaine, for example, he was actually ripped of and it's all lidocaine and sheetrock dust.

Yeah, in Texas the Defendant gets to pick who sentences- judge or jury, but has to pick prior to trial starting.

It might depend on the severity of the crime/trial, the number of people available (Houston versus backwater Texas), how many cases are actually on the list for jury selection that day, etc.

I was in a room in Houston with 250 of my closest friends, where people were drawn out in groups of 20-50. I was also in a Galveston County courthouse where there were just 50 of us, and only one group of about 20 were pulled.

I'm sure there is some sort of system, but I'm not an accountant!

 kronk wrote:

 Monkey Tamer wrote:

This is why trial lawyers hate actually doing trials. The jury is not there to determine if the defendant goes to jail or not. The jury is there to determine guilty or not guilty. The judge determines if a sentence of incarceration is necessary

This is absolutely not always true. In the trial I served as a Juror, we set the sentence. as well.

Depends on the jurisdiction.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kronk wrote:
It was Texas. We like to do our own hangings, thank you!

Thats why they give all the jurors a rope when they start voir dire. If you can finish a hangman's noose without direction, you're automatically on the jury.

Im glad the one time I got called for Jury duty I could just say "My address is X, but I live in Y cause of school"

I only ever got called once, well twice but the 2nd time didn't count. I got the letter, but 2 days later I moved out of the county, and they said I could disregard it.

My uncle who's a lawyer says he never, ever had jury duty. He gets the letters all the time, and just ignores it and doesn't show up. I always thought you could get arrested for that, but he says no.

 Necros wrote:
I only ever got called once, well twice but the 2nd time didn't count. I got the letter, but 2 days later I moved out of the county, and they said I could disregard it.

My uncle who's a lawyer says he never, ever had jury duty. He gets the letters all the time, and just ignores it and doesn't show up. I always thought you could get arrested for that, but he says no.

You can technically get a bench warrant out, but its never done. They can't prove receipt.

Lawyers are never ever chosen for a jury.

 Frazzled wrote:
Lawyers are never ever chosen for a jury.

Almost never... it depends on a lot of factors. Most judges will dismiss anybody working the legal field, and most parties will use a preemptory challenge on one, but sometimes a judge will allow lawyer with no potential conflict to be seated, and parties run out of challenges.

My Criminal Law professor knew a federal judge that was seated in Ohio Common pleas.

I did jury duty before going to law school, it was fascinating. Juries definitely do better work for criminal cases than civil.

Touche one can never say never*


*I will never eat broccoli.

 Polonius wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Lawyers are never ever chosen for a jury.

Juries definitely do better work for criminal cases than civil.

Seeing most civil attorneys in trial makes me chuckle . . . right before I pass out from boredom.

 Frazzled wrote:
Touche one can never say never*


*I will never eat broccoli.

I mean, it's still deadly to put a lawyer on a jury. You go from a jury of six or twelve to a jury of one.

I've served jury duty once. The lady next to me during jury selection says she never gets chosen because she once worked for a law firm. Lawyers pull her because they don't want her second guessing them. Makes sense

 Swan-of-War wrote:
I've served jury duty once. The lady next to me during jury selection says she never gets chosen because she once worked for a law firm. Lawyers pull her because they don't want her second guessing them. Makes sense

Yeah. I have a few relatives who are lawyers, one of which is a prosecutor. They tend to not want people with a lot of legal understandings as it can make things harder to argue a case.

I've been called once, and even though I'm a student, it was summer so I chose to go. I find the legal system fascinating, and was actually pretty eager to be there. I wasn't selected, and talking to my relatives, I was told that being happy to be there tends to set off flags for some lawyers, as I would probably pay more attention to the case.

I was called a few years ago, and NH likes to add insult to injury. You have to report on three separate dates and are eligible for all cases being heard in the two weeks following the report dates.

My name got pulled three times. First one, I heard a day of testimony, then realized I knew a witness in the case by face, but not name (they read everyone involved before hand). I got bounced and thanked.

Second one I got pulled for I knew the defense attorney, which was enough to get me cleared.

The last case I showed up for and heard about an hour of testimony before the jury was excused. Prosecution was over-reaching by going for a distribution charge as opposed to a possession charge. Judge came in and told us he had dismissed the case due to lack of evidence.

I doubt your locality is similar to NH, but just keep in mind, unless you catch a capital case, you're losing a week or two at the extreme.

Things I saw other people get excused for: being handicapped, being a mechanic for police vehicles, being married to a cop, being a victim of a crime, being a perpetrator of a crime, being violently ill (though they made her come back at a later date). YMMV

Knock on wood


Think I am still label under military no call for jury box

There is one phrase that will get you out of jury duty no matter what 'Jury Nullification'. It is such a hairy topic that no court will touch you with a 10m pole.

Careful, some courts have attempted to arrest you for contempt of court by saying that.

That would be quite a stretch, it is hardly contempt of court to say "I know about this hairy topic in the legal world".

 Krellnus wrote:
That would be quite a stretch, it is hardly contempt of court to say "I know about this hairy topic in the legal world".

https://www.rt.com/usa/324359-man-arrested-jury-nullification/

 Frazzled wrote:

 Krellnus wrote:
That would be quite a stretch, it is hardly contempt of court to say "I know about this hairy topic in the legal world".

https://www.rt.com/usa/324359-man-arrested-jury-nullification/

I will be honest, that seems sketchy as hell. Not the article, but what happened there.

Yeah. That's an ugly read.

Of course, we only have the defendant's interviews. We don't know what was actually written on the pamphlets.

Well, given that the jury nullification nuts tend to right up there with the sovereign folks, they are usually a pain to deal with since they like to emphatically spout terms with no real understanding of the meaning. Then they start trying to "educate" (read harass) potential or actual jurors, get hit with tampering/intimidation/etc. and it gets messy.

Instead of jury nullification you just opine that if they weren't guilty they wouldn't be in court...

Or inversely, this looks like just another case of where The Man is trying to keep someone down.

I've been sent a card like this once but although it was sent to my current address in it with the rest of my personal information they had my old mailing address (different city) so I just checked the box "I can't be on the Jury", in the comments explained that they had the wrong information and sent it back. I haven't seen any repercussions.