Octopus Overlords

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For the first time in my 44 years on this planet I've been popped for Jury Duty.

I'm actually kinda looking forward to it.

Of course, I'm sure if I actually get picked and assigned it will be for something incredibly boring.

Better something dull than having to review the evidence of a gruesome double homicide.

I've repeatedly been a pool member, never a juror.

Better something dull than having to review the evidence of a gruesome double homicide.

Given that we're third in the nation for homicides per capita there's a very real possibility of that very thing.

I figure if I really want to get out of it I can just tell the judge/lawyer during the interview that I would make a terrific person because I can spot a guilty person just by lookin' at 'em.

I served my last jury duty entirely online. If you get the "call-in" variety (which they also post on their website) here, the court lets everyone know each day at noon if they need to be at the court at 1pm that same day as a pool member. You have to check for one week, and if you never get called in, you're done. I never got called in, and on the fourth day they let us all off the hook for Friday.

If the one hour notice is no good for you, you can opt-in to old fashioned style sit at the court and wait. No thank you!

I'm on the hook for three weeks. During that time I have to phone in each day to check to see if I've been picked. A recorded message lets everybody know if they've been chosen and when to report.

I have served twice on civil and criminal cases. Both were interesting but I managed to get the evil eye of the lawyers during the criminal trial. It's after lunch, it's hot in the courtroom and I look lke a bobble-head...

Definitely a cool process to go through. The jury discussions are interesting.

Here, unless you're on a grand jury, it's one day or one trial.

I've been tagged 4 times. Three of those ended without my panel number being called. Early afternoon on the 4th, my number was called, the group was all led to the elevators, then we were handed checks and told to get lost; the defendant settled. So I've never been able to use the creative stories I've been saving for the interview.

Was selected as the foreman of a jury once. Was a simple breaking and entering case, but the stupid prosecuting attorney charged the guy with the wrong crime on two of the counts. Trial took like 2-3 hours (in which the bailiff actually went to sleep and snored right next to the jury box). We deliberated for 6 hours. As I mentioned the prosecuting attorney was awful - this was a case which involved alcohol (and hell, 99% of cases seem to involve drugs or alcohol) - and the prosecuting attorney allowed 2-3 former alcoholics on the jury. They didn't want to pass a guilty judgement because they could empathize with the guy.

I was selected for jury about two years ago and I had a great time!

It was a drunk-driving case involving an automobile accident. Defendant hit another car while turning left into a parking lot. The defendant fired his lawyer in the first 15 minutes of the trial and decided to defend himself. MUCH hilarity ensued!

He argued with the judge and the prosecution experts. At several points he reminded me of Homer Simpson when he and Marge had to go to court to get the kids back, "Shut up Judge!"

None of his witnesses, who were in the accident with him, showed up nor could they be located. He DEMANDED that we watch all of the patrol car camera footage, thereby introducing into the record the fact that this was his fourth DUI. Then, on the last day, during his closing arguments, he presented to the jury a can of Budweiser which stated on it's label that it was 5% alcohol by volume. He theorized there was no way his blood alcohol could have been .2% at the time of arrest since that would have only been like a half a beer's worth consumed. Figure that math out...

By the time he was done most of us in the jury box were stifling laughter. Hilarious.

Oh, this should be good!

I served on a jury once. It was for a drug possession case, nothing too exciting, but I found the whole process pretty fascinating.

Pro Tip: If you get selected, bring a big thick book. You get to spend lots of time sitting in a little room with bad coffee, lousy snacks, puzzles with missing pieces and 11 of your "peers" none of which you're likely to have any desire to talk to.

So I never got called.

Only twice in the three weeks did they actually call in jurors and the highest they got to was juror 138. I was juror 342.

Irrelevant to the actual thread, the DirecTV commercial where I assume you took the thread title from is one of my favorites. It wasn't until like the 10th time I saw it that I noticed all of the things going on. For those that don't know, Opulence? I has it.

I need to get me a tiny giraffe.

I've only been called once. The first day no jury was selected and I spent the day in a room watching jury duty videos until they decided to let us go home. The second day we were actually taken into the courtroom for jury selection.

The case was for a drunk driver who was representing himself. He had been pulled over, failed a breathalyzer test, the cop was there to testify against them, yet he thought he had a case. Everything this guy knew about law he had obviously watched on television....and he apparently didn't watch much television. He tried to get up there and use fancy words and clever questioning to choose his jurors. Hilarity ensued. I believe one juror he dismissed because she said she would tend to believe the results of a breathalyzer test over taking his word for it. You could tell the judge and the defense lawyer were just rolling their eyes at every opportunity.

I ended up not even getting called up for possible selection, so I didn't get to see the outcome of that circus. As we were leaving the guy beside me said, "The man who represents himself has a fool for a client." I don't think that statement was ever truer than in this case.

On the flip side, my mom got called for a federal drug case many years ago and spent almost a month on jury duty. She said that was pretty scary because she was sitting in the same room as this murdering drug kingpin for weeks on end. She was terrified she was going to get whacked.

Unless I could guarantee sequester ala Pauly Shore, with steak dinners, fine wine and strippers, then I never wanna be on Jury duty.

RunningMn9 wrote:Irrelevant to the actual thread, the DirecTV commercial where I assume you took the thread title from is one of my favorites. It wasn't until like the 10th time I saw it that I noticed all of the things going on. For those that don't know, Opulence? I has it.

I need to get me a tiny giraffe.

I had never seen that commercial until clicking on your link.

No, my thread title was more icanhascheezburger than DirecTV.

But the micro giraffe is indeed cool.

Brian wrote:I had never seen that commercial until clicking on your link.

No, my thread title was more icanhascheezburger than DirecTV.

But the micro giraffe is indeed cool.

It took me a few times through before I noticed that in the background, he actually has dogs playing poker (I laugh every time one of them pushes his chips in).

So I thought I had jury duty next monday. Turns out it was today.... I went to work.... Came home to see what group I was in for next week, and that's when I noticed it was for today So I'll be pleading for mercy of not being fined $1500

I was going through my mail on Friday in preparation to clean up my place in preparation for my upcoming surgery and parents coming in to take care of me ... and got a jury duty summons. For three days after my tonsils will be removed.

Looking at the form, there's a box to send back the form for deferral for medical reasons, but they want a doctor's note. There's also a website. So I go to the website and look for what and where I need to send stuff. I finally track down the deferral request page three layers deep. It gives me a calendar with two dates available, Dec 14 and 15 as available. I select the 15th, click Next ... and am told that I'm deferred and will get an e-mail to confirm. No muss, no fuss, thanks for playing, see you in 2.5 months.

naednek wrote:So I thought I had jury duty next monday. Turns out it was today.... I went to work.... Came home to see what group I was in for next week, and that's when I noticed it was for today So I'll be pleading for mercy of not being fined $1500

What ever came of this, Ken?

In April I had Superior Court jury duty....but never had to appear.

Then last month I was on call for Federal jury duty...for a month. Thankfully again I never had to appear.

I just got my first summons yesterday and I am 25. I am scheduled for Dec 12. My dad has gotten selected 3 times in the past and was able to get out of them. I am stuck. Hopefully it at least goes quick and is an interesting trial.

Weird thing is that another guy I directly work with just had jury duty last week.

My daughter got popped for jury duty on the federal level. Her jury period runs pretty much all through December.

That reminds me. I need to find my documentation and schedule the time off for my December date.

*Or, you know, just read my earlier post.

Maybe I should play the lottery? In the past 10 years, I have been summoned at least 10 times for jury duty. Federal, city and county. Not once have I been selected to serve as a juror (and after seeing the patterns over the years, I swear it's due to the way people are dressed) I always show up in non-California business casual, and it seems like the people wearing crocs, jeans or shorts are the ones that end up getting selected.

16 years in Arizona and I've never been called. I may have been called once when I was in San Fran, but if I was I don't recall it clearly. The one time I do remember being called was when I was living in AZ the first time in a much smaller community. I was excused because the (one) DA was also my landlord.

I served on a medical malpractice case a few years ago. I was forced to learn unspeakable facts about how a woman's insides tend to fall out of her as she ages.

Made it on time, which is no mean feat considering I have to travel through downtown during rush hour to get here.

I walked to mine. It is a block or 2 away from my work.

So here is how it went, called in Friday before and was told I did not need to go in monday and to call back Monday after 6PM. So I forgot to call that night so I called the next morning at 8AM when I got to work. The message said I needed to be there at 8:30. I told my boss and left. I walked to the courthouse, got to the jury assembly room and sat there till about 9. At that time they swore us in went over everything they had to then checked us in. After that they let us go for "lunch" This was about 9:45-12:45. I walked back to work and clocked on for those few hours. When I got back to the courthouse we sat in the jury assembly room until about 2PM, before we heard anything. At 2 they told us that the first judge has no more cases, all the cases were either postponed or the defendant took a plea bargain. Then at about 3 they told us the other judge working that day only had a few more cases. At about 3:45 they told us they the only other judge was clear as well and we were done.

It made me a little angry that I wasted all that time and no one even got selected to be on a jury. No one even got to see a judge or defendant. It amazes me that they had no problem wasting all those people's time for nothing. But oh well, I am done for 2 more years. Hopefully next time I will get to be on a jury.

miltonite wrote:It made me a little angry that I wasted all that time and no one even got selected to be on a jury. No one even got to see a judge or defendant. It amazes me that they had no problem wasting all those people's time for nothing. But oh well, I am done for 2 more years. Hopefully next time I will get to be on a jury.

It's not really a waste of time. The mere fact that they have enough people to impanel a jury often causes a defendant to take a plea. Or at least that is what they told us. I brought my DS Lite, so I was content to let mine drag on for the day.

The one jury stint I've had so far was a little odd. We were pretty much just rubber-stamping a legal formality. It was for a girl with Down Syndrome who was turning 18 and wasn't high functioning enough to handle her own affairs. Both sides 'argued' that her parents should continue to function as her power of attorney and such.

The first 90 minutes went by With the "don't lie" oath, the requisite propaganda/information video, and hearing the call outs of the people that can't follow instructions, either by failing to mail back / Internet submit their questionnaire and, even funnier, showed up at the wrong courthouse. Disappointingly, they were allowed to stay and given new juror numbers. Given that the pools are being pulled sequentially, I find this to have the possibility of being done on purpose.

As of right now, they've called 2 groups, the second o which was cancelled. We're in a 30 minute break now. If another court pulls a group, I'll be in that one. I kinda hope they do, as I have no real desire to do this and go to work this afternoon.

And I'm done. 2.5 hours in the pool room, and no more pools called.

Based on the questionnaire, I hold be clear for at least the next six months.

When I went, I wanted to be called. First I've never served on jury so I think it would be cool to see process and do my civic duty. Second because sitting in the room all day sucks. I got called early in the day as a possible alternate for a really cool half civil/half criminal case where the wife was suing the husband for half his business over a divorce but the reason he was divorcing her was for physical abuse, which he was attempting to have prosecuted. But then they sent me back to pool after about 15 minutes questioning and dismissing jurors. There I waited... And then they started sending jurors home... And I waited. And then they sent more jurors home... And I waited. And after about six hours of being locked in the pool room for the second time they finally sent me home with the last group of people. A complete waste of a day.

Isgrimnur wrote:And I'm done. 2.5 hours in the pool room, and no more pools called.

I wish my courthouse had a pool. That wouldn't be bad at all - just lounging by the pool all day, waiting to be called.

The only time I ever sat on a jury, I was surprised by how little time is spent actually "working". The trial lasted a week, and I don't think we were ever in court for more than 3 hours a day. Easiest eight bucks an hour I ever made.

Justice is a minimum wage job?

Canuck wrote:Justice is a minimum wage job?

Nope. Federal minimum wage is $7.25. So you could be getting a raise depending on your state.

I've been summoned three times, but never picked. Seems like once you get on the list here they keep summoning you until you make a jury. The 2nd time I'm happy I wasn't picked...a murder trial of an informant and ex-police officer by one of the leaders of a Hell's Angels chapter. Was told to not speak to anyone when leaving the courthouse. Had visions of bikers following me home and asking me to vote not guilty.

Murphy Hall of Justice pays only $50 plus travel expenses of something like $1.50 for every ten miles from the HoJ you live. The expectations are 9 to 5 though they may release you early. You have to feed yourself. I don't know if they let you bring food from home into the courtroom. I have to give sign the check over to my company because they reimburse me a day's pay for every day I spend in Jury duty.