Jury Duty roll-call...

it sucks you dont down into a big room and they put you into brackets by number and then you go listen to a case.... just hope you dont get called i never did. They say you have a better not getting picked if you speak but thats a lie lol. i didnt say a word and i didnt get picked then again i was the youngest in the room.

 

You go into a big room with over a hundred folks. You sign in and wait. After a while they'll split you up in groups so you can go to your respective courtrooms. Here is where the lawyers voir dire you and choose which one will be on the jury.

You don't get paid for any of this time. But if you do get chosen to be on the jury they give you some tiny amount, like $30 a day. When I was a contractor, I would do whatever I needed to get out of jury duty. I couldn't afford to lose that much money a day. Now that I work for a company who would pay me to be in jury duty, I'd do it just to see what it's like.

 

When we were in Houston, I was on a jury that had to decide if a suspect needed further evaluation to determine if he was fit to stand trial on a rape case. Both prosecution and defense agreed. Their 4 experts agreed. We should have been in and out of deliberations in less than 5 minutes. Idiots on the jury kept us in the room for about an hour.

My wife was on a capital murder jury back in the early 90s. Guy was sentenced to death. In 2010 he was still on death row. A federal judge decided he was not competent in 1991 to stand trial. Not sure where it stands now. He is no longer on death row, but I think he is awaiting a new trial. It was very cut and dried that he committed the crime. He executed (shot him in the back of the head after making him kneel down) his boss at McDonalds after robbing the store.

Even though he meticulously planned the crime (he also had failed plans to try to get money other ways), eluded police by traveling to Mexico and Canada to try and gain asylum at their Iranian embassies (he was not Iranian, but wanted to live there) and knew what he was doing was wrong, the federal judge still deemed him incompetent almost 20 years after the fact.

He had a number of prior felonies as well.

 

I went once and was picked for the jury. I have no idea why.

My case was a plastic surgery patient versus her doctor. She had effectively liposuction on her butt. It didn't turn out well.

I'm a doctor's son. I said as much in the questioning. I noted I was likely to side with the doctor, all else being on the up and up.

Unfortunately, my background and personality prevented me from outright lying, even in a belligerent manner as many of the other candidates did. "Screw doctors!" etc, etc.

Still, I can't fathom why the prosecuting lawyers didn't tick me off the list.

Whatever, it was a 3 day trial, very ho-hum, and as expected the doctor won.

While I definitely appreciate the ability to be judged by your peers, it can be a pain in the ass. I went a couple years out of college, was in the middle of work (and I was working 80 hour weeks already, so I had to do jury duty, then go to work at 5:30 pm, then work till like 4 am, then back to jury duty at 8:30...

 

Been called three times, never been picked. You get you $5 or $6 regardless. The first time I went it was a prominent capital murder trial and they'd already chosen 9 jurors from pools on previous days. They'd pulled us out of the big pool from the waiting room, didn't even have to go to the basement, and gave us a questionaire. From the questions, you knew what kind of trial it was going to be.

The 2nd time I went it was drug case, possession with intent to distribute. Heroin I believe.

The 3rd was a guy accused of sexually assaulting a minor and it was inferred that the minor was a male. They'd gone around the room and asked us if any of us had a problem convicting a guy based solely on the testimony of one person. I said that I did and that might've contributed to my not getting pick. I remember that there was this woman there in my group, a stewardess. She'd commented that she always got picked despite her job requiring her to travel. They picked the jury and she wasn't in it. She let out a sigh of relief and made some kind of "Thank God" comment. They then dismissed one of the jurors they'd picked initially and called her to take his place.

 

People actually show up and attend jury duty!?

I have gotten a few in the mail and I just rip em up and throw em away.

 

lol that is cold and hilarious

 

That's a shame. If you're serious, they do keep records of who shows up when called. It is generally a fineable offense.

 

If you want to get out of being on a jury, call and reschedule it for the Friday before a Monday holiday. You'll show up and get your ticket punched; the judge won't show and you will be out of there in less than an hr.

 

I'm lucky enough to live 100 yards north of the Harris/Montgomery County line which means I don't have to do Harris County jury duty.

Montgomery county is a BREEZE. They actually tell you what case you're being assigned to before you even show up. You go directly to the assigned courtroom instead of sitting in an assembly room for 3 hours waiting for your juror number to be called.

Last time I had it, it was for a drunk driving case. I didn't get picked, so I was literally in and out of there in about an hour. I'm actually looking forward to the next time, since it's basically an extra vacation day from work.

 

The one time I was called, I was dying to hear all the testimony. Three of the sweetest old ladies I've ever seen were charged with unlawful confinement, aggravated assault, extortion (I think) and some other juicy stuff.

It was scheduled to be a long trial so they were pretty lenient on excusing people, and I wan't picked. Nor could I have afforded to serve. And I never found out more about the case.

 

Think I made it all the way to voir dire twice. Both times it was somebody trying to sue big gas companies. First time I made it on the jury. Second time the Shell attorney asked if we would hold the current high gas prices against his clients. I raised my hand and was like ummm....yeah. Was dismissed right away. :grin:

 

I just throw them away. It's involuntary servitude if you consider $5 chump change.

My advice, don't respond to them. Just throw them away. They can't prove you received it in the mail and opened it. Going on the website and giving them an excuse is acknowledging you received it.

 

Got a summons twice. The first time I showed up and they couldn't find me anywhere in the system. Said I wasn't supposed to be there. So I said C-Ya.

Second time I got picked. It was what I thought would be a largely boring trial on an unpaid/rejected insurance claim. A dude's house burned down and the insurance was claiming they didn't have to pay because the guy had abandoned the house. It all came down to how the insurance policy was to be interpreted. And because it was just vague enough that it wasn't a clear cut case, the judge would not help us interpret the clause at all.

So all of that was boring. What WASN'T boring was that the insurance lawyer managed to do just enough over the course of the trial to throw in pieces of evidence that insinuated the guy had burned his own house down for the insurance money. There were witnesses that saw him pulling wiring and appliances out of the home days before the fire occurred. They tried to introduce some testimony by the firemen who put the fire out, but it wasn't allowed by the judge.

Unfortunately, we weren't there to decide if he burned his house down. We were there to determine if we felt the home had been abandoned according to the way the policy was written. And most of us, grudgingly, agreed that he had not, so he got his money.

Sometimes if feels like our court system is totally screwed up. I suspect that insurance company changed the way they phrased their abandoment clause following that ruling.

 

I noticed that here in Fort Worth they started a system where you can get assigned your courtroom online instead of gathering/waiting in an assembly room. For whatever reason, I was thinking it would be easier to show up at the assembly room since it is close to my job. However, sitting through them calling out assignments and waiting through all that was excruciating. And, even though there were hundreds of people there, it seems all of us got assigned (unlike my time before where I was a backup who just had to wait if they needed an alternate from the backup pool).

I won't make that mistake again. I'm just going to get my courtroom assignment and go the next time....save some time and grief.

 

I got a notice about three months ago. Went to it and they said it was rescheduled and check back later. I never checked back.

 

I was picked for a civil case back in April. Most boring experience of my life. Got $6 for the first day, $28 per day each day after that (3 more days).

 

I got summoned twice.

First time I claimed exemption for school.

Second time I could have claimed an exemption, but decided what the heck.

Jury selection was terrible. First I had to drive 20 miles to the stupid county courthouse early in the morning. Started at 9am I believe. Ended up having a break of like 2 hours, so I drive all the way back to my house and then drive all the way back. Ultimately, wasted most of my day, made me miss work where I was on hourly pay. Gave me 20 bucks for 6 hours worth of sitting in a room not to be selected.

I still couldn't believe it when they selected the woman who said she had served on 12 juries, and the did their job every time except once, when one guy held out.

 

When you get into the court house they are gonna be like 4 or 5 rows of seats. If you are seating in the first 2 rows then you might get picked.