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Jury Duty

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iambrutus said:
I've been summoned 4 times, but this week was the first I've ever gotten to go. I served on the grand jury - pretty freaking cool actually. we heard a bunch of different types of cases and really got a feel for what law enforcement is dealing with in our county.

Have you ever done it?
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I have not but I once received a call from a man pretending to be a detective trying to solicit me for money because I "missed" a jury summons that never existed.
 
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Got called a couple years ago and seated on a personal injury case for an auto accident. No question of guilt/blame but a question of whether the accident caused a new injury or exacerbated an existing injury. Seeing depositions from two different doctors that completely contradicted each other was fun. It was fairly interesting and mostly enjoyable.
 
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Had been called a few times in the past. Only ever seated once, but we never heard the case. Court clerk released us and since we had officially been seated as a jury we did not have to come back. Never knew what it was about and the clerk said she never saw anything like it in her 20 years.

A couple of stories.

First, with the case above I was working for a local city at the time. My police chief couldn't believe they selected me for the jury, especially as I come from a family of cops. Also, I knew the judge and they still let me get through the selection.

Next, I used to live in a small town in the middle of nowhere. One time I reported to the county courthouse for selection. There were about 50 of us sitting there as part of the pool. They brought out the defendant, he took his seat, he turned around and looked at the pool, turned back, leaned over to his attorney, the attorney approached the bench, and then we were all dismissed. I knew the attorney in that case too and he said the client took his advice to not leave his fate in the hands of the jury. Let's just say the jury pool was not exactly made up of his peers.

I haven't been called again since I am now self-employed. Maybe once I am retired in 20 years.
 
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I got called for jury duty four times:
- First was in the mid-90s when I was in college. The letter went to my house. My parents wrote a letter back saying I was in college and unable to serve. That's the last I ever heard about that.
- Second was in 2000 or 2001. I was working in Medina, Ohio. I forget if it was Medina County or Medina City that called me. Either way, it's supposed to be a week long. "Call this number Sunday night and get directions on how to serve." So I called. "We don't need you tomorrow. Call back tomorrow." So I called back the next day. "We don't need you. Never call us again."
- Third was in Cuyahoga County. About 2017. "Show up at this time on Monday." So I did. And I sat and sat and sat. A huge group of us in a room kinda like a library. Full of other nerds called for jury duty. Every once in a while we'd get someone who'd randomly call out 20 or so names. I think those blokes were executed - I never saw them again. Friday about noon they said, "We don't like you. Go home."
- Fourth was also in Cuyahoga County. I think it was 2020, because the room that we used before was closed off from us. Now we had about 4 times as much space. Covid rules, or something. This time, they said, "Call us Sunday night. We'll give you directions." So I called. "We don't want you, yet. Call back tomorrow." Monday night, same thing. Finally, Tuesday, I'm told to go in. "Finally - I'm going to get to be on a jury and actually do something. They wouldn't call us in if they didn't have a jury for us." Wrong - I just sat for 3 days. Bor-ring.

My wife served once, though. Just once, and she got on a jury. She said it was a case where some guy was accused of robbing a bank. Or maybe it was just an ATM. But he tried defending himself. I guess the judge was like, "that's a bad idea." Anyway, he was on camera, and she said it was pretty obvious it was him. I think his defense was that it couldn't have been him robbing the bank, because he was on camera robbing this other bank at the exact same time. I think she said the jury never retired to vote on anything, but I forget that part.
 
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iambrutus said:
I've been summoned 4 times, but this week was the first I've ever gotten to go. I served on the grand jury - pretty freaking cool actually. we heard a bunch of different types of cases and really got a feel for what law enforcement is dealing with in our county.

Have you ever done it?
Click to expand...
I've never been selected. It's been a while since I have been summoned, maybe ten years ago.
 
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I’m looking forward to being called some time. Earlier in my career I would have hated it. Now that i’m on the edge of retiring, I want to be called and sat. I think the experience would be fascinating.

Sadly, I think that they will see right through me (read: excitement to participate) and toss me in about 5 seconds.
 
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I've been called 4 times but only seated on a jury once. It was an assault case. A confrontation outside a bar had resulted in one burly young man breaking the jaws of two, not-so-burly, young men. Mr Burly was charged.

It took two days. We found our defendant not guilty. He had claimed self-defense, and some really grainy, long-distance footage, from a nearby store's security camera, proved Mr Burly right.

One thing I learned is that unlike fights you see on TV, when a big, healthy young man hits a smaller man forcefully and squarely in the jaw, he will go down like a rock, and not get back up. Mr Burly did this twice, in immediate succession. First one foolish (and much smaller) guy approached him in anger, then another, even more foolish guy, did the same. He hit them each exactly once.

The "pick a foreman" thing went quickly, as there was an obvious candidate. Then discussion and voting went smoothly for us. I think we were done in less than an hour.

The whole thing, from the jury selection to dismissal, was really interesting.
 
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Sat once for a rape case....

Basically it was he said/she said. And the woman was so inconsistent with everything she said, it was hard to follow. And not because she was shaken up or anything - she wasn't able to relate day to day things either. And the weird part is she was so inconsistent about her own statements that even the prosecutor was visibility angry at her. Hard to explain in context.

It didn't help that the other individual was a dumbass with a rap sheet at least 15 pages long, but it was all minor piddly theft shit - like the biggest thing was one time he stole a whole carton of cigarettes instead of a pack, shit like that.

Anyway - I was the foreman so I was trying to watch the room after reading through the stuff I had to read to the group. Voting went quick except for one member who knew these two personally and had lied about it in the jury selection process. As foreman, I got to talk that over with the lawyers and the judge. That was a whole fun time - it cost us a full day, and it held up what was otherwise a pretty unanimous not guilty verdict. Ultimately it became a mistrial but I don't think it ever came back to be tried. I'm pretty sure the person who lied on the jury got charged with contempt but after I identified the issue, they were removed from the jury room and we never saw that person again.

Afterward the Judge came in to talk to us about the case and his reflection matched my own - both of the individuals in the case were likely to be back in the system sooner or later. Water finds its own level eventually.
 
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