Today, I'm at one of the various Los Angeles County courts for jury service. Hopefully, I will not be selected for a trial.
Twelve years ago, I was selected for a jury for a trial that lasted eight weeks, including deliberation. I feel like that was enough, but maybe that I haven't been called in the meantime means they thought that too.
Fortunately, they have wireless, but, and this is a huge one teamliquid.net is blocked on the Los Angeles County Courts network!
Whaaat?
Wound up logging on to work and getting on from there. How baffling!
Im only 19, maybe this isnt the topic to be posting. but how do u get involved with jury duty. i dont want to do it. but how do u get selected?, and if u do get select, people tell me you cant see ur family till the sentenced has been said or something? i would like to know a bit more!
I bet the IT guy for the LA court system got banned from TL for spoiling results.
On May 21 2011 01:26 Illusionnist wrote: Im only 19, maybe this isnt the topic to be posting. but how do u get involved with jury duty. i dont want to do it. but how do u get selected?, and if u do get select, people tell me you cant see ur family till the sentenced has been said or something? i would like to know a bit more!
In Canada you are eligible to be selected for jury duty if you vote in the federal election(very rare to be chosen though), not sure if it is the same in Ireland.
On May 21 2011 01:26 Illusionnist wrote: Im only 19, maybe this isnt the topic to be posting. but how do u get involved with jury duty. i dont want to do it. but how do u get selected?
I can't speak for Ireland, but here in California, you get a notice in the mail giving you instructions on where or when to show up.
As for not being able to see your family -- that practice is called sequestration, and it's extremely rare, at least here. Most of the time, juries are just told not to discuss the case with each other or their families and are asked to avoid reading about the case in the media. Juries are only sequestered in the most extremely high profile cases that are the subject of wall-to-wall coverage in the media.
On May 21 2011 01:26 Illusionnist wrote: Im only 19, maybe this isnt the topic to be posting. but how do u get involved with jury duty. i dont want to do it. but how do u get selected?, and if u do get select, people tell me you cant see ur family till the sentenced has been said or something? i would like to know a bit more!
IDK how it is in other countries besides the US but it's a random selection for anyone 18+. You're required by law to do it and they then screen potential people to weed out those who might view the case from an undesirable point of view. Sometimes you can say you've heard of the case or read about it online which disqualifies you, or just try and make it clear that you're biased. But I think that can be risky if they suspect you of trying to get around it and that's contempt of court. You can definitely see your family but you aren't allowed to talk about what goes on.
On May 21 2011 01:26 Illusionnist wrote: Im only 19, maybe this isnt the topic to be posting. but how do u get involved with jury duty. i dont want to do it. but how do u get selected?, and if u do get select, people tell me you cant see ur family till the sentenced has been said or something? i would like to know a bit more!
You'll get a letter in the mail saying that you have to be at a courthouse at that certain date. You go there and will be given a quick rundown of what the procedures there are. If you're lucky enough, you'll be picked to go to attend a trial as part of a jury. Hopefully you know enough about the legal system to understand the process that happen in the courtroom. You are not allowed to disclose any information regarding the trial to anyone else outside of the courtroom until the trial has ended. Depending on how long the trial lasts, you may have to go back on other days to see the end of it.
Edit: Didn't realize you were from Ireland, justice system there might be a little different xD
On May 21 2011 01:38 Shai wrote: Also, is it weird that I'm jealous? I'd love to do jury duty at some point in my life. Seems like it would be interesting.
In the event that you are selected for a case, it can be an interesting experience, which is why I don't go way out of my way to avoid doing it. However, since you have no control over when it happens, it can be an unpredictable inconvenience.
The case for which I was a juror in 1999 was a civil suit. A homeowner in Los Angeles was suing 20th Century Insurance for maliciously mishandling their claim for foundation damage following the Northridge earthquake. We wound up finding for the homeowner, but it appeared from the context that they probably walked away from a larger settlement, since the attorneys looked pretty miserable.
Jury duty sucks when you come on time but they make you wait like 4 hours before it starts, and then constantly wait for everything to get ready and started. The case was really strange + Show Spoiler +
some guy was charged with having sex with a dead 15 year old
I'd love to get involved in jury duty at least once in my life. As a student, it's not like I have anything better to do, and I think the experience of how the justice system operates will help me in my future criminal endeavors.
Why do you guys want to be picked for jury duty? It really is not very exciting, there really isnt very much interesting in most cases, I don't see what could be appealing about it :p
A great deal of people just pretend to be racist or something so they don't have to miss work.
Fortunately I was able to get out of my last (and first) summons between a combination of school and working as a contractor (hourly pay, as opposed to wage). That could have been horribly disruptive.
To get out of jury duty (in a somewhat legitimate fashion - as opposed to faking being a racist dickwagon), I hear that most of the time, if you get called in for selection, you just have to give off an air of being a logically-minded, reasonably person and/or already appear to have made up your mind about the case. Defense lawyers aren't looking for people like that. They'll more-than-likely pick people, and demographics, that appear to be on-the-fence that can be easily persuaded.
On May 21 2011 02:02 storm44 wrote: Jury duty sucks when you come on time but they make you wait like 4 hours before it starts, and then constantly wait for everything to get ready and started. The case was really strange + Show Spoiler +
some guy was charged with having sex with a dead 15 year old
Yo storm, would you care/can you discuss further details about this case? it appears to be pretty ridiculous from your short description.
Hey man, just tell them you took some legal aid classes at the local community college as something to do, youll get cut from their list of prospective jurors in no time :D
So, when between the time I was 18 and 25, I was selected for Jury Duty 9 times. That's not even legally possible because in California, you're only allowed to serve one time a year. It happened was because each county selects people for Jury Duty in different ways. LA County uses the driver registration database while Alameda County uses voter registration--at the time, my driving address was in LA county while my voting address was in Alameda County. What was even more strange was that the actual odds of being chosen for Jury Duty is somewhere in the range of once every 5-10 years. Even if I were eligible in both counties, I statistically should have only been chosen once or twice. The power of civil duty calls.
On May 21 2011 06:18 gchan wrote: So, when between the time I was 18 and 25, I was selected for Jury Duty 9 times. That's not even legally possible because in California, you're only allowed to serve one time a year.
Having served in the last year is a statutory excuse. When you call in, you can tell them you've served in the last 12 months and be excused. However, if I remember right, the way they phrased it on our questionnaire was "have you served IN L.A. COUNTY in the last 12 months?"
Also, in the orientation, they indicated that they use both driver's license and voter records, and if your name does not match exactly (for example middle name spelled out vs. an initial) you might get called twice. They said just to indicate that you've already served that year.
What was even more strange was that the actual odds of being chosen for Jury Duty is somewhere in the range of once every 5-10 years. Even if I were eligible in both counties, I statistically should have only been chosen once or twice. The power of civil duty calls.
From what I understand, those odds changed when most of the counties switched over to the new One Day/One Trial system (where you call in for a week but only have to come in for one trial or one day in the jury room if you aren't selected or held over by a trial judge.) Now, in Los Angeles County, they pretty much have to call every eligible juror on their rolls once per year to have enough jurors.
It used to be that if you were called you had to show up at least five to ten days in a row, guaranteed, but they had to call fewer jurors because they waited around longer.
Well, I wasn't trying to get out of it, but I was excused (for cause!) after coming within a hair's breadth of being an alternate.
I believe the issue was that the defense attorney had defined fairness as, among other things, not hoping for one side or the other to prevail. I asked whether it was impossible for someone to fairly evaluate the case if they hoped that the facts and the law would lead to acquittal, while recognizing that that may not be the case. Asked further about this, I stated that while I know it's not the case, I would like to believe everyone's a good person absent evidence to the contrary. To my ears, that's a restatement of the legal presumption of innocence, but the lawyers seemed somewhat shocked that I would say this.
If I had to guess, I would suspect that, in general, the more one talks, the more likely one is to be excused, no matter what one says.
In the end, though, it was expected to be about a two week trial plus deliberation, so I am happy not to have been chosen as an alternate.
On May 21 2011 01:26 Illusionnist wrote: Im only 19, maybe this isnt the topic to be posting. but how do u get involved with jury duty. i dont want to do it. but how do u get selected?, and if u do get select, people tell me you cant see ur family till the sentenced has been said or something? i would like to know a bit more!
In Ireland they're chosen from the list of people on the voting register, so if you're registered to vote you're eligible.
Only one person I know has had to do it though... you know how courts are over here
Well my dad told the court he doesn't speak English. He didn't get chosen for jury duty.
Btw do you get paid while on jury duty in California? In Ontario, they don't unless it's really long (4+ weeks). Even after that, it's a miserable amount of money.
On May 24 2011 08:35 Sufficiency wrote: Btw do you get paid while on jury duty in California? In Ontario, they don't unless it's really long (4+ weeks). Even after that, it's a miserable amount of money.
Pay is $15 per day not counting the first day, plus $0.34 per mile one-way driving distance.