Re: [OT] Judge reams out people avoiding jury duty

On 2025-05-20 11:53 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

On May 20, 2025 at 8:40:03 PM PDT, "Rhino" <no_offline_contact@example.com>
wrote:
 

On 2025-05-20 10:33 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

  On May 20, 2025 at 7:03:41 PM PDT, "Rhino" <no_offline_contact@example.com>
  wrote:
 

  On 2025-05-20 9:40 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

    On May 20, 2025 at 5:45:58 PM PDT, "Rhino"
<no_offline_contact@example.com>
    wrote:
   

    A judge in Hamilton, Ontario gathered a whole lot of people who had
    failed to turn up for jury duty and demanded to know why.
>
>
>
>
https://www.thespec.com/news/crime/hamilton-courtroom-fail-to-obey-jury-duty-summons/article_6719b3d0-6d16-58bc-801e-62bf15b3fed1.html
>
    I've only been called once and I showed up. The defendant made a last
    minute decision to plead guilty and the whole jury pool of 250 was
    dismissed so I wasn't there very long.
>
    I'm under the impression that most Americans feel that only fools fail
    to wiggle out of jury duty. Is this true?

        I'd actually enjoy serving on a jury, especially now that I'm retired and
  have
    time to kill. Even when I was working, the FedGov's policy is to pay
you the
    whole time you're on jury duty as if you were at work, so you don't
lose any
    money and you get (potentially) a week out of the office. A lot of people
    aren't so lucky and don't get paid while on a jury. Most, if not all,
states
    have laws that prohibit an employer from firing you for jury duty but they
    don't have to pay you while you're on one.

  Interesting. I think employers in this country have to pay you for the
  time you are on the jury but it may not be your normal pay. It may just
  be minimum wage, which would be a major cut for people with good jobs.
  When I told my employer about my summons, they assured me it wouldn't be
  a problem for them but it was inconvenient for me because I was working
  an evening shift that ended around midnight so I didn't get my full
  night's sleep before showing up for the jury pool.

        When I retired, I embarked on something I’d wanted to do for years and
  packed
    up the car and just started lazily driving around the country,
  state-by-state,
    staying in various places, sometimes a week at a time, to see all the
  sights.
    L.A. to Key West, Florida to Maine, etc. The trip took me a month and a
  half.
   

  That's all? I can imagine a trip like that lasting years.
>

    When I finally returned home, I found a long-expired summons for jury duty
  in
    my accumulated mail. I called the number on the summons and explained what
  had
    happened. The woman looked up the number on my summons and said it was no
    problem, they'd just cancel it in the system and issue a new summons
for me
    since I was home now and being retired had no work conflicts with serving.
  And
    a few days later, a new summons showed up.

>
  Clearly, there are *some* reasons that are considered acceptable for not
  answering the summons and you hit on one of them ;-)
>

    I went and got eliminated the
    moment both sides discovered I was a lawyer.
   

>
  Is being a lawyer a get-out-of-jury-duty card in every trial?

    No, but both sides generally don't like people in the jury room that can
both
  explain the law to the other jurors and tell them all the legal tricks that
  lawyers pull to keep evidence away from the jury.
    In CA, there are, however, exceptions written into the law that they have no
  discretion about granting. (Being a lawyer isn't one of them.) If you meet
  them, it's an automatic pass.
    One of them is that you can decline to serve if you're a certified peace
  officer (cop) and they have a whole list of like 20 different types of cops
  that qualify, everything from a standard beat cop to a fish and game warden,
  but federal agents are nowhere on that list so I still had to go when I got
a
  summons back in 2016.
    I figured I'd go in, fill out the background questionnaire and when the
  lawyers realized I was a federal cop, they'd kick me immediately, but I
  actually ended up serving on the jury. I was stunned. During voir dire,
  neither the prosecution nor the defense seemed to have any problem with me
  being both a lawyer and police. (It was an aggravated DUI case.)
    Even the judge, who has everyone's forms up on the bench, was perplexed. As
  they were about to move on to the next potential juror, she stopped them,
then
  asked me if I would have any problem presuming the defendant innocent given
my
  background in law enforcement. She was obviously trying to signal to the
  defense that I was a cop in case he missed it. I said I felt I could and the
  defense attorney, who must have been fresh off the set of LAW & ORDER, still
  asked me no questions and didn't object at all.
 

It's interesting that the judge tried to "help" the defence. I'm a
little surprised the prosecutor didn't object.

 She was helping both sides, really. It's true the defense usually objects to
cops but prosecutors don't much care for them on the jury, either. Same reason
as lawyers: they know all the details about how things are done, like crime
scene processing, and can point out to jurors when things seem to be 'missing'
or suppressed.
 

I guess it's true that sausage makers don't like outsiders knowing how the sausage actually gets made....

  So I ended up getting picked for the jury. My boss didn't believe me. He
  thought for sure I was just saying I got picked so I could take a few days
  off. He even showed up in the courtroom to watch one morning of testimony.
 

That's funny! I would have thought he'd just ask to see your jury
summons. Maybe HE was the one looking for a day off ;-)
>

  (We found the guy guilty.)
 

I hope he learned his lesson. Some drunks apparently DO clean up their acts.
>

  Do they at least make sure you don't have a criminal record when they
compile
  their lists of prospective jurors?

    I would assume so. They do ask you about any arrests or convictions you've
had
  on the questionnaire. I don't imagine they just take people's word for it
when
  they say no, though.
>

I certainly hope not.
>

  What about language? If you don't have
  fluency in the language the court is using, are you automatically
  disqualified from serving or do they find an interpreter for you?

    In my trial, the judge excused an ancient Chinese lady from serving who
could
  barely speak English.
 

>
A wise move on the part of the judge.

  

--
Rhino