Jury Duty

[RocketMan]

If I do get hauled in, all I have to do is have the judge call the number, and I'll be a free man by lunch.

Anybody want to take bets the number is fixed by the time Antibubba gets called about it again?

[doc2rn]

I was called one time to court. I took so much evidence and written testimony from people who where at the scene that the defendant was found not guilty in 3 minutes.

[Vodka7]

One45auto:

Your experience almost exactly mimics the one I had in the criminal trial I jurored for.  I served as jury foreman, and without getting into specifics, I never once took a vote twice that had the same results both times.  Everyone flip-flopped, everyone wanted to take a swaggering cop down a notch, no one believed in any of the evidence (and there was plenty), and all of them went on what "their gut" told them was "believable."

We deliberated for three days, and eventually agreed on a compromise because no one wanted to come back Monday.  (It was a drug trial, and he was brought up on four counts.  The compromise was everyone would vote guilty on the most serious of the four, and he'd walk on the other three.  Talking with the bailiff after the trial, I came to find out that he was already in jail awaiting another drug trial while this one was going on.  He had been released on bail three years earlier, skipped out, went back to dealing in the *same neighborhood* and it took the cops three years to find him, completely by coincidence, in a random corner stakeout.)

[Chris]

The only good thing about getting picked for a trial is that judges have better hours than anyone on Earth, including bankers and postal employees.  The trials I served on never started before 10 or 11am, and we were almost always out by 3 or 4.

I know I'm just a magistrate, not a "real" judge (a magistrate is like an assistant judge...I do everything but jury trials.), but I'm in the office by 8:15 latest, and start hearings at 8:30 most days.  Stop at noon, start back up at 1:00.  Courthouse closes at 4:30, but if I'm in teh middle of a hearing, I'll keep going.  Been there as late as 9:30 or 10:00. But these are bench trials.  When I was a prosecutor, the latest I stayed during a jury trial was 5:00.  Judges in Ohio try to be kind to jurors.  Ther are elected officials, and jurors are registered voters.

[MechAg94]

Yeah, I am sure the judge does more stuff than sit in on jury trials. 

[Chris]

The biggest time-consumer are the motions.  Attorneys file just tons of motions in cases, asking for everything under the sun.  Every motion must be read and decided.  Doesn't sound that bad in that sentence, but on my own docket, let's say that half of the cases have a motion that must be decided before or after trial.  My docket runs about 900 cases a year, so your looking at somewhere around 450-500 motions a year.  That doesn't sound like a lot, because many can be addressed with a line or two as a decision.  the ones that take research into the legal issues and then a lengthy written decision make you stay up at night working late.

[Declaration Day]

I've been called for jury duty once before, and am going again tomorrow morning.

I got off easy last time.  I was in one of the first few groups called, and we were led to the door of the courtroom.  We waited there for several minutes, then someone came out of the courtroom and told us that the defendant had decided to plead guilty at the last minute.  We were then led into the courtroom, and the judge informed us about the case.  She then re-assured us of the importance of our role, even though we were not needed.  We went home at 10:30 AM.

The defendant was a huge, muscular guy who had raped an 11 year old girl repeatedly.  I hear that in prison, child molesters are prime targets.