Civil Disobediance

[iris lilies]

I got a jury summons for February 22. That happens to be the day of my doctors appointment. Sure I can change my doctors appointment but – why should I?

i’m thinking about just throwing it away and not showing up. What are they gonna do to me? Issue one one of those bench warrants? screw them, they never pick up anyone for that stuff anyway. My neighbor has multiple bench warrants out against him for not showing up in court and he continues to ignore court summons.


What’s the point in bothering to participate in good citizenry? I once was very into the responsible thing but nope no longer.


I could probably get out of it legally by running to Hermann and changing my voter registration to Herman, which I’m going to do anyway. A year from now I will be a voter there so why not change it now? I don’t care about voting in city elections anymore they all stink anyway . Well I do like my alderman but I can give him money.

[Yppej]

Can't you get a postponement of the jury duty? In my state it is automatic for your first request and you can push it out a year. By then you may have moved.

[bae]

I got my allowed two extensions recently, as I was out of the country during the proposed periods. Then this coming week, when I'm supposed to have it, and there's a juicy trial lined up, they have postponed trials due to covid concerns in our antique courthouse.

I never get put on a criminal jury around here anymore anyways though, so the whole thing is a waste of time - a day to get over to the island with the courthouse, sit around for a couple hours, then immediately sent home.

[pinkytoe]

I don't mind jury duty but the process is incredibly inefficient. I have been summoned twice since moving here (preCovid) and both times had to pay to park, sat in a large room with 100+ people for over an hour listening to a lengthy talk about the importance of our civic duty and then told we were dismissed.

[happystuff]

We have a phone number on our summons to call each day (can call the day before) - even day 1 - to find out if we will need to show up in person or not. Last time I was summoned, I was actually dismissed via the phone call on day 3. Never had to show up in person.

[Tybee]

I would call and change it if you have a doctor's appointment. The jury duty, I mean, if they will let you. It's so hard to get a doctor's appointment these days.

[rosarugosa]

Yes, agree that you should be able to get it postponed with no problem.

[JaneV2.0]

I had more than a moment of panic when I got a summons last year. Finally, I got through to someone and got off their list, just a little shy of my 75th BD. As I told them, I would have been happy to serve ten years ago.

[Alan]

My only jury experience came in the early 80's when I was called to serve on our county's Grand Jury which met every other Tuesday for a 3 month period. It was very informative and I'm glad I experienced it. Strangely though, I've never been summoned again.

[iris lilies]

In my city people have to serve on jury every 3-4 Years. It is a PITA. I used to enjoy it, but no longer.

[Yppej]

How old do you have to be to get a permanent age exemption?

[rosarugosa]

How old do you have to be to get a permanent age exemption?

Jeppy: I'm not sure if it's the same in every state, but it's 70 in MA.

[iris lilies]

Not only have multiple people I know been on murder trials, including DH, but multiples have been foremen on murder trials. That tells you how often we serve around here. I have been on both criminal and civil juries. dH was on grand jury for 3 months.

[frugal-one]

That sounds horrible IL! The last time I got a summons, I had moved out of the area, thankfully. I have no desire to be on a jury EVER.

[Tybee]

I was one one in South Carolina and it made me very nervous. It was sort of funny at points though because the judge was a circuit judge out of Charleston, and Beaufort does things differently and is quite rural in many ways. At one point the big time lawyer from Charleston asked if anyone knew anyone in this particular family and we all raised our hands, and a doctor said, your Honor, I half of my practice are that family or related to them, so I don't think you can use that question to rule people out.
I was shocked when they called my number.

[happystuff]

I worked in the legal arena in the service, but have never served on a jury at all. Closest I ever got was in my 20's and made it to the interview stage, but was then dismissed. I still think it might be interesting to do, but I don't think I would want to do a murder trial. (As if I could pick! :|()

[iris lilies]

I forgot about another jury I served on: personal injury civil suit against an off duty cop who hit their car. The cop was the mayor’s son.

The young couple who sued asked for very reasonable compensation. They asked for compensation for missing work for a couple of weeks and just a lowball number for their injuries. We gave it to them.


I figured there were some major problem riding on this cop’s back that caused him to go to an expensive jury trial.

So in total I’ve served on three juries: two civil suits and one criminal case, a drug deal.

Interestingly enough, DH and I were served with court papers two weeks ago. We’ve never been on the wrong end of a lawsuit. We’ve never been on the right end either! Our names are pristine, are absent from state legal databases until now. It’s more family farm drama. Stay tuned, I’ll talk about it when the bullshit is over

[catherine]

I'm sure I mentioned my jury experience that was traumatic for me because I failed to go with my instincts at the 11th hour.

Short story: Defendant had been a suspect in a convenience store armed robbery years ago. Was never convicted. Years later, someone finds a ski mask with DNA on it and connects it to this defendant, so it goes to trial.

I won't go through all the details, but the bottom line was when we sat in the jury room we couldn't connect the ski mask with the defendant's DNA to that actual crime. I swear to God the whole thing was like 12 Angry Men, because the initial poll of the jury was all but two said "guilty". The three who said "not guilty" were an Ultimate Frisbee-playing college student, a Latino, and moi. The Latino said he would go to a hung jury rather than convict a Black man, so there was that.

The Frisbee guy and I said there was reasonable doubt.

We were in the jury room from Wednesday to Friday. There were people who had things to do on the weekend--one woman was going to a horse show in South Carolina. There was definitely a sense of urgency to put the thing to bed. When we did the last poll on Friday at about 4pm, we came to a unanimous verdict of "not guilty."

That might have seemed like a win for me because I felt there was reasonable doubt. But at 3pm, we briefly talked about something the prosecutor had brushed on. The fact that witnesses said the ski mask of the robber was on kind of crooked. What we observed in the evidence on Friday in the jury room was that the DNA was actually taken from a spot on the mask above and to the side of the mouth hole.

The prosecutor had never connected those dots in her prosecution. The cockeyed mask; the off-center DNA--for me it removed the reasonable doubt. It took us until Friday to connect those dots in the jury room, but by then everyone was checked out. My regret: before we did our final poll, I would have a) pressed people to think about the implications of those pieces of information and b) asked for the poll to be anonymous: a paper poll rather than going around the room where peer pressure could have been a huge factor. I had been in market research for probably 8 years by then and I knew when to do paper polls and when to do hand-raises. I should have insisted on the anonymous poll.

Not only that, but the judge wasted no time in telling us that the guy had been caught on video in another convenience store crime, but that prior experience wasn't admissible in court.

Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference, but I have felt guilty about letting this guy off. The only thing that makes me feel a little better is that the Latino still would have hung the jury.

Just like 12 Angry Men, I saw first hand how people's past experiences, biases and prejudices factor into verdicts.

[iris lilies]

Yeah, that priors are not admissible as evidence is GOOD in the whole because it supports “innocent until proven guilty.”

But in my city courts, I’ll assume there are priors for the perp because otherwise the perp would just plead out. Most cases they’re on the third strike and they’re out. In our drug trial I knew the guy had priors because he retained an expensive attorney. We didn’t convict him and I don’t feel guilty about it, but the guy was guilty.

[iris lilies]

Yeah, that priors are not admissible as evidence is GOOD in the whole because it supports “innocent until proven guilty.”

But in my city courts, I’ll assume there are priors for the perp because otherwise the perp would just plead out. Most cases they’re on the third strike and they’re out. In our drug trial I knew the guy had priors because he retained an expensive attorney. We didn’t convict him and I don’t feel bad about it, but the guy was guilty in some way and one of the men in the car had the drugs.

Catherine , in your case the prosecutor should’ve hit that point that you focused on harder. That is a failure of prosecution.

[catherine]

Catherine , in your case the prosecutor should’ve hit that point that you focused on harder. That is a failure of prosecution.

That's what I think, too. Maybe that's why she broke down sobbing when we delivered the verdict.

[iris lilies]

I got out of jury duty. Showed them a utility bill in my name from
Hermann.

in the next few weeks I will be changing my voter registration address to Hermann, anyway. I want to vote in Hermann’s next municipal election.

[gimmethesimplelife]

I got summoned for jury duty again after posting about going to jury duty a few years ago. And then covid came and I was dismissed. And it is an incredibly inefficient system. A former tenant from way back in 2005 was murdered at work - he was a security person on the dicey Westside.

Point? A few months ago he received a jury summons at my.address. Huh? He's been dead 16 years!!! I called and managed to get the late Mr. Milton Ferris off jury duty due to his death and the court employee had to ask a few people how to get this deceased potential juror out of jury duty. Crazy! Rob

[Tybee]

I got summoned for jury duty again after posting about going to jury duty a few years ago. And then covid came and I was dismissed. And it is an incredibly inefficient system. A former tenant from way back in 2005 was murdered at work - he was a security person on the dicey Westside.

Point? A few months ago he received a jury summons at my.address. Huh? He's been dead 16 years!!! I called and managed to get the late Mr. Milton Ferris off jury duty due to his death and the court employee had to ask a few people how to get this deceased potential juror out of jury duty. Crazy! Rob

Wow, that is a horrible story. Glad you followed up to get him off the roles.

[Teacher Terry]

I got curious and looked and at age 70 you don’t have to serve here.

[Tradd]

Same here.

[jp1]

When I lived in NYC I served on two juries. Reached verdicts in both cases. Not terribly exciting cases but in both cases I think we made the right decision. One was guilty the other was innocent. Since moving to California I have postponed to the week between Christmas and New Years a few times and been excused during the call in. Except for the most recent time a couple months ago when I was willing to serve but got excused without having to go in. Probably because covid was causing a lot of trial cancellations.