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

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.

 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.