I know that Jury Duty is mandatory in both nations (USA all 50 states / Canada all 13 provinces) meaning citizens have to show up in person when they receive the “dreaded letter” via the mail telling them the date / time and court in which they have to attend, excusals exist if you manage to plead your reasoning for excusal with evidence.
I mean, have you received a summons from the court saying you’ve been chosen as a juror? There are penalities on failing to attend. If you were selected on being part of the jury, what is the experience like and how much are you paid? If you weren’t selected on being part of the jury that time, is there a chance you can be summoned again at any given moment?
Neurodivergent people (i.e. Autism, ADHD, dyslexia) who have received the summons can plead their reasoning as to why they aren’t eligible to be a juror only if they have medical evidence (diagnosis of their condition, psych report, doctors letter, medical certificate) explaining why their condition makes them unable to serve & etc.
Me and two friends were coincidentally summoned at the same time - 3 different counties across two states. Mine and one of my friend’s summons were cancelled, and my other friend just got sent home yesterday from a case as he wasn’t needed. But the position has tenure for 3-4 months so we might have to go back.
My first summons was when I was 18 …I ditched it… paid the fine. Back the it was 80 bucks. The next time some 30 years later I went. It was in San Diego superior and there were hundreds of other people in a huge hall and they were calling names. I tried my best to be invisible but my name came up. Next thing I know is everyone in the nury thinks I’d make a good foreman… Despite my objections that’s what they wanted. Ended up being a slip and fall case for a lady in a restaurant. I fought like hell to get her more compensation and w eventually reached a compromise. I got her a better settlement and wow what a cool experience.
I was selected 3 times and sat on juries for murder cases each time. Guilty, not guilty, and guilty. Last time was 2017. It was worthwhile thing to do even if it was inconvenient.
I think its $12/hr compensation, and fuel only gets reimbursed if you gotta drive for more than an hour to show up. I got my letter on my desk, but its for an undetermined date in july
I’ve been summoned a couple times. Was paid $12 for not being selected to the jury. I think you’re off the roster for awhile? They were about a decade apart.
how much are you paid?
I don’t remember exactly, but I remember feeling insulted by the stipend because I spent more on parking in downtown Detroit and had no means of transportation into the city other than driving myself. I had such a hard time finding cheap parking spots within reasonable walking distance of the court.
I’ve never actually served, but the pay is like $2 an hour plus maybe parking in the US. How frequently you actually receive a jury duty summons depends on jurisdiction.
Was summoned once, and ended up on the jury. It was a really sad case where the cops were trying to put an 80-something year old former convict back in prison, because his son in law had a gun in the house (that they searched because of something the son in law did, but no charges were brought against him), and that was a violation of the 80-year-old’s release conditions from like 40 years ago.
I really wanted to end up on the jury in order to keep this guy out of prison, which luckily we did. The defense was very smart in making his case sympathetic, even though legally the guy had no leg to stand on. There were a few jurors that wanted to imprison him, but we finally got them to go with the majority to ignore the law and keep him out of prison.
The easy rule of thumb if you do/don’t want to be on the jury: the less you talk, the more likely you are to end up on the jury. The more annoying you are, especially talking about how busy you are, or asking a lot of pointless questions: the less likely you are to end up on the jury.
I have been summoned many times and have never sat on a Jury.
Don’t try to get out of it. It’s the most power you will ever get as a single citizen in the US. You can make the difference in someone else’s life, and it may be a matter of life and death based on a law that you don’t even think should exist. If you ever have a trial by jury, you don’t want to be judged by a group of people who couldn’t think of a good-enough excuse to get out of it, you want smart people who will potentially put their foot in the door between you and unjust laws.
Read up on jury nullification. Try to get on a jury. Don’t tell them anything they don’t ask directly. Dress like anything but who they think they don’t want on their jury during the voir dire process.
I was summoned once, but no juries were selected that day. My younger brother was the foreperson of a grand jury.
I’ve been selected three times for jury duty. Two were county and one was federal. As far as pay went, county payed awful, it was less than minimum wage. Federal paid a bit better, and I got mileage to the courthouse, I also had to front the parking cost and be reimbursed later.
The first time I was on a criminal trial for rape of a mentally handicapped woman, I was kicked off that jury during selection. The second time I had to go in one day, but all the cases for the day ended up settling, so they sent us back home. The third time was a civil case for a prisoner who had his stuff destroyed by one of the guards, I was part of the jury and we couldn’t reach a verdict because some people couldn’t believe a guard would just do bad things.
we couldn’t reach a verdict because some people couldn’t believe a guard would just do bad things.
That’s wild.
Was the guard human? Yes? Then they are capable. Look at the evidence!
To be fair there wasn’t really any evidence. The guard claimed it was a contraband search for a hat the inmate was wearing, but the guard followed the guy back to his cell from a separate building and never actually found the contraband. The guard claimed the inmate destroyed everything after the search. There weren’t any witnesses, and any camera footage that could have proved anything was not retained by the prison.
It’s clear to anyone that remotely understands how prisoners are treated that this was clearly a guard abusing their power, but privileged white women don’t have to face that reality.
No, no. It is a long established scientific fact that once you take a 6 week criminal justice course at the community college and put on that badge, you’re physically incapable of doing wrong.
I served on Grand Jury in NY state. 2 days a week for 8 weeks, listened to the evidence and decided if there was enough to charge/not charge. Really interesting experience.
Yeah I’ve been summoned a bunch of times (California). You get that at most 1x per year and usually you’re not needed (you’re excused over the phone, or you go to the courthouse and wait around most of the day before getting sent home). If you’re sent from the waiting room to an actual courtroom, you’re there with 50 or so other people who get called up and questioned (“voir dire”) one by one til they have selected 12 jurors and 4 alternates. Anyone left over is sent home. Once I made it all the way into the questioning phase but then got excused. I haven’t yet actually been on a jury. Anyway it’s time consuming but not that hard. There’s a small payment for those who need it. It’s nowhere near minimum wage.
I’ve been summoned as a juror twice in >20 years of eligibility. They have a number you call when the date comes to see if you actually have to appear or not; the first time, I didn’t have to go at all. The second time, I did have to appear; I sat in a waiting room with about 20 other people for an hour, then we were all told we could go home.
Overall, shitty experience.
We were explained that even sitting there waiting to be called was important. Usually things become real to the defendants when there’s a jury waiting and things settle at the last minute.
Having been on the receiving end of that, the prosecutor tacked on a bunch of extra charges the day before my trial, so that me and my overworked public defender would agree to a plea bargain.
That explains the wait-then-dismiss situation. On the other hand, I wonder if the person on trial actually did it or if they were pressured into a plea deal…
I do not have a lot of faith in our court system.
That time, we sat on a civil case, so a settlement would have been money changing hands
Been selected many times, but they don’t like engineers on juries.
why don’t they like engineers on the juries?
We tend to think logically more than emotionally. We can do timelines and walk cause-and-effect. Some of us have functional BS detectors. But most importantly, we ask questions and know how to word them.
