Jury Duty

[A True Kaniggit]

20 hours ago, Baitac said:

Soooo, I'm to report tomorrow at 8:00a.m. Thankfully we can bring phones and iPads and they provide Wifi. I think this is very smart as it subdues the restless masses. It definitely settle me down. No drinks allowed, so I'll gulp my Starbucks mocha on the way. Hopefully my number won't be called. 

What's the verdict? Yay or nay?

[Baitac]

1 hour ago, A True Kaniggit said:

What's the verdict? Yay or nay?

 We were released at 11am. Not one of us, and we were close to 200, was called to serve on a panel. We sat for three hours, waiting. We were lucky as it could have been more time. All the cases plea bargained. We did have wifi.

[A True Kaniggit]

Halfway there and luckily I'm only 3/5 dead. However, if the defense brings out an economist to testify too it might finish me off, no matter how much HP I have at the time. 

[A True Kaniggit]

FREEEEEDOM!!!!!

[Lily Valley]

Congrats!  Way to perform your civic duty!

[Which Tyler]

I have to say, as a self-employed sole trader, the thought of jury duty terrifies me. I could manage a week, 2 would be a struggle, a month would take at least a year to recover from. Anything longer could potentially putting me 10 years back, to being a start-up company again.

[Robin Of House Hill]

I think I'll tell my jury duty horror story.  A few years ago, I got my jury duty summons, filled out my juror questionnaire and reported as required.  They then called a number of us and sent us to a courtroom for assignment to specific cases.  I discovered that the reason we were separated from the main jury pool is that we had either indicated we were retired or of other categories where assignment to cases that were expected to be lengthy trials, wouldn't impose financial hardship.  Upon learning that, I stood up before the assignment judge and argued that such selection violated the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment and US age discrimination statutes.  He wasn't having any of that, stating it was solely a matter of posing the least economic hardship.  

I got assigned to a case involving three defendants charged with 151 crimes, ranging from grand theft to various kinds of fraud, etc.  The trial lasted a week and a half and then five days of very contentious deliberation.  I swear if I am ever called for jury duty, again, I will feign dementia.

[Larry of the Lawn]

On 12/16/2016 at 4:35 PM, Which Tyler said:

Clearing quote

 

47 minutes ago, Robin Of House Hill said:

I think I'll tell my jury duty horror story.  A few years ago, I got my jury duty summons, filled out my juror questionnaire and reported as required.  They then called a number of us and sent us to a courtroom for assignment to specific cases.  I discovered that the reason we were separated from the main jury pool is that we had either indicated we were retired or of other categories where assignment to cases that were expected to be lengthy trials, wouldn't impose financial hardship.  Upon learning that, I stood up before the assignment judge and argued that such selection violated the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment and US age discrimination statutes.  He wasn't having any of that, stating it was solely a matter of posing the least economic hardship.  

I got assigned to a case involving three defendants charged with 151 crimes, ranging from grand theft to various kinds of fraud, etc.  The trial lasted a week and a half and then five days of very contentious deliberation.  I swear if I am ever called for jury duty, again, I will feign dementia.

Pretty awesome that you did that.  It seems wrong that they screen people like that for so many reasons.  On top of putting more of a burden on those on a fixed but guaranteed income, it also deprives the accused of a pool that is a true criss section of citizens.  I think they need to start paying jurors a per diem at about four times the minimum wage.  Of all the places we dump money in the criminal justice system having a fair and impartial jury shouldn't be neglected.  Or being fair to the jurors 

[Robin Of House Hill]

I wound up being the jury foreperson.  Won't do that again.

[Larry of the Lawn]

O_o

[Maltaran]

Wait, do Americans not get paid for jury service? In the UK, if your employer chooses not to pay you while you're away the court will pay you for loss of earnings, and the per diem amount goes up the longer the trial is.

[Which Tyler]

5 minutes ago, Maltaran said:

Wait, do Americans not get paid for jury service? In the UK, if your employer chooses not to pay you while you're away the court will pay you for loss of earnings, and the per diem amount goes up the longer the trial is.

The government thinks it's £50 per day, regardless of length of trial - though there does seem to be an additional £15 daily if you also have to arrange care for other people.

£50 a day wouldn't cover my overheads, let alone allow me to earn a wage or stop my patients going to see someone else.

[A True Kaniggit]

On December 18, 2016 at 3:25 PM, Maltaran said:

Wait, do Americans not get paid for jury service? In the UK, if your employer chooses not to pay you while you're away the court will pay you for loss of earnings, and the per diem amount goes up the longer the trial is.

For the one I just finished I believe the rate was $25 a day. I'll be able to be a little more specific once I actually get the check. 

Edit: yep. $25 a day and 16 cents per mile driven. 

[Maltaran]

20 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

The government thinks it's £50 per day, regardless of length of trial - though there does seem to be an additional £15 daily if you also have to arrange care for other people.

£50 a day wouldn't cover my overheads, let alone allow me to earn a wage or stop my patients going to see someone else.

It says here that it goes up after 10 days

[Which Tyler]

Cheers, that's more comprehensive than the page I'd found

[A True Kaniggit]

An addition to my Jury Duty story. Yesterday I was out and about and I ran into one of the Plaintiffs. I didn't really want to talk to him, but he was sitting next to me. He mentioned that the defense had hired private detectives to talk to members of the jury about what happened during deliberations. I haven't been contacted by anyone, and for all I know what he said is complete BS. But is that legal? Can jury members be contacted by either party after the trial is over specifically to ask about the case?

[Robin Of House Hill]

During the trial, no, but I believe it is legal after.  I could be wrong.

 

[Seventh Pup]

Last year I had to do jury duty. It was a civil case, that lasted 5 days, I lost 3 days of pay and tips. The case was about... One neighbor pruning another neighbors hedge without permission. :/ Both the plaintiff  and defendant where well off and lived in an affluent neighborhood with a view. There was some miss communication, and a hedge was trimmed with out the owners ok. The plaintiff lost it. He wanted the defendants to pay for the removal and replanting of a new hedge (the hedge was fine and in fact had grown back to it's original size by the time of the trial).  The defendant had offered to settle for $12,000 but the plaintiff wanted $45,000. He got about $5,000. It was such a waste of time for literally everyone. 

[Which Tyler]

1 hour ago, Seventh Pup said:

 It was such a waste of time for literally everyone. 

I have a sneaking suspicion that there may be some lawyers somewhere may disagree with this.

[DunderMifflin]

My only experience was hanging out in a room with board games and such for 2 days. In the 3rd day I got called into court and the lawyer was interviewing the potential jurors, including myself.

He was asking questions like "if this happened would u convict" 

When he got to me he asked something I forget now, I wasnt giving yes or no answers because he was rephrasing questions and adding in things the 2nd time. So I was just asking him questions right back, in order to protect myself from being hustled into telling a lie. but the whole courtroom busted out laughing every time I said something. Like I've never been that funny in my entire life, but ppl were cracking up then for some reason. I wasnt trying to be funny at all. The judge was giving me this mean look of disgust like I was trying to be a troublemaker, the lawyer asked everybody else like 20 questions buy for me he said excused after like 4 questions. It just reinforced my belief that government people are fucking evil.