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  • #31
    Re: Jury Duty

    LOL> Tutu. I read every word also.
    FutureNewsNetwork.com
    Energy answers are already here.

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    • #32
      Re: Jury Duty

      I served as a juror several years ago, and was glad of the experience. I felt as if I were in a seminar, observing the whole trial process from beginning to end.

      I overheard this guy say recently, that he was thinking of sending his friend in his place as a juror. It got me thinking... I don't remember having to show my ID at any time. I know I had to turn in my Summons and mileage card, but no ID. Did anyone?

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      • #33
        Re: Jury Duty

        Fascinating tales, Nords & FM. Can't say that my two jury-duty terms last year were worth writing about in such detail; let's just say I was happy to have a couple of really large books with me.

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        • #34
          Re: Jury Duty

          Originally posted by Sharilyn View Post
          I overheard this guy say recently, that he was thinking of sending his friend in his place as a juror. It got me thinking... I don't remember having to show my ID at any time. I know I had to turn in my Summons and mileage card, but no ID. Did anyone?
          Interesting point. I never showed ID. I never saw anyone have to show any ID. I guess the assumption is that if you're holding the summons then you're who it claims you are.

          I can only imagine the wrath of God that'd rain down upon this attempted deception if it was discovered. Inside the courthouse, it's pretty clear who's a lion and who's an antelope. If I wanted to get out of jury duty so badly that I'd risk sending a proxy then it's probably better to just not show up at all.

          Originally posted by Leo Lakio View Post
          Fascinating tales, Nords & FM. Can't say that my two jury-duty terms last year were worth writing about in such detail; let's just say I was happy to have a couple of really large books with me.
          My first time ever. I'm not eager to repeat it, but I guess it's one of the obligations that goes with the benefits.

          I finished most of a paperback in one day.

          I'd have to check the fine print on the next summons, but I'm under the impression that you're not asked to serve more than once a year. That may depend on whether you actually had to go all the way through a trial to a verdict.
          Last edited by Nords; July 14, 2010, 09:37 AM.
          Youth may be wasted on the young, but retirement is wasted on the old.
          Live like you're dying, invest like you're immortal.
          We grow old if we stop playing, but it's never too late to have a happy childhood.
          Forget about who you were-- discover who you are.

          Comment


          • #35
            Re: Jury duty part 1/2 again

            I haven't found any website archives on this story, so I'm not going to use names. However it was clear from the "accidental testimony" and the defense's objections that we weren't supposed to hear about the rest of the defendant's day. When he was arrested that night, the police were already looking for the car his girlfriend was driving. Maybe he wasn't involved in anything else or maybe he really was "just helping out his girlfriend". We jurors were only supposed to deliberate on his offenses of "promoting a dangerous drug" and "possessing drug paraphernalia". Whatever had happened that day, two years later a couple of the patrol officers were still visibly pissed off at the defendant.

            I don't know what took two years, either. He'd spent almost 24 months "free" on $11K bail, plus whatever other legal action was being taken. Maybe the two years was needed to finish up other trials, or maybe it just took the bureaucracy that long to get around to what is probably considered a minor crime. Frankly the arrest & trial seemed like a colossal waste of time & money, or maybe the police & prosecutors just wanted to beat him down some more because they couldn't try him on anything else. We weren't there; we have to trust their judgment.

            But before I describe the trial, there's more courthouse bureaucracy. On Monday we chosen 14 (12 + two alternates) showed up outside the courtroom at 9:15 for our day's first muster. We were lined up in the order in which we'd filled the jury box (back row first) so that we could quickly march into the courtroom in single file and take our seats by the ripple without a bunch of milling around. (The courtroom is surprisingly small and hard to move around in, so this might be necessity rather than formality.) Of course after the muster and lineup we had to wait outside a couple minutes in formation until the extern came back out to give us the "enter" signal. During the day we performed this evolution at least six times.

            Because of this muster/processional formality, it takes a few minutes to move the jury. If it was done every time we jurors weren't supposed to hear something then we'd be mustering & marching all day. The judge has to whisper when he wants to talk privately to the lawyers in a 25'x25' room without us jurors eavesdropping. But the other court personnel (clerks, reporter, extern, other trainees) have to hear what he says too. So when the judge says "Counsel, approach the bench", the rest of the staff leaps out of their seats and scampers up to gather around the bench, notepads & pens in hand, poised for action on the judge's every syllable. The reporter actually hoists their (portable) gizmo onto the top of the bench, right under the judge's nose, and types while he whispers. This happened at least a dozen times that day at the judge's behest, and perhaps another dozen or so at a lawyer's request. So requesting to approach the bench risks getting a half-dozen other people annoyed at you.

            Before our first bathroom break of the day, the judge read us the court's jury rules-- over three pages of "What not to do". (I guess they've had lots of problems.) The judge admonished us that until a verdict had been returned, we couldn't approach the lawyers or defendant(s) or let them approach us. We had to report if it happened to us, and we had to tattle on the other jurors if we saw it happen to them. We were told not to talk about the case with anyone, of course, but we were specifically admonished not to Facebook, Tweet, blog, text, e-mail, chat, or post to website discussion boards. The judge said that it seemed pretty silly to say these things ("If any of you actually understand any of the things I'm talking about") but he also said that the court had already had a juror livecasting a trial. (Ryan, do you have any stories to share with us?) We were also given lanyards with big blue "JUROR" cards so that the rest of the courthouse occupants would know to avoid us around the bathrooms or the coffee pot. You spend the day surrounded by strangers with whom you really can't converse about the subjects on your mind, unless it's witticisms like "Hey, how 'bout that weather?" Ironically the deliberation has an element of time pressure ("Get me the heck outta here"), yet you realize that you hardly know these people aside from having sat beside them for a day. In retrospect I wish I'd spent more break time getting to know my fellow jurors-- yet during the breaks you really just want quiet time to use the bathroom, get more coffee, and maybe warm up outside. Lunch was 75 minutes, but of course it's out of the question to send the whole jury over to a group table at Restaurant Row for talk story.

            The judge said that he was required to read these instructions to us before each break, but he hoped we'd just consider it said each time without him having to read it again. As he was reading from his pages of text, the reporter was furiously pounding their keyboard to convert his speech to more printed text. Courtrooms desperately need automated voice-to-text transcriptions and optical character recognition but perhaps the tech isn't considered reliable enough for legal purposes. Or maybe court reporters don't get paid much.

            The trial started with the most boring testimony, which was probably a good idea at 9:30 AM rather than at 4 PM. The prosecutor brought in an evidence analyst who spent 10 minutes explaining why she was an expert, and then said that she'd found 128 milligrams of crystal methamphetamine residue in a glass pipe. It wasn't that simple-- she had to explain how she got it out of the pipe without losing/contaminating it, and then how her machines would analyze it without further screwing things up. The prosecutor was checking off some sort of list as she asked her questions, though, so this was probably considered an essential part of the trial. The defense lawyer could've saved a lot of time by agreeing to accept the evidence without testimony, but maybe the defense is supposed to wait for the prosecutor to make a fatal error in front of the judge. Probably he hopes the testimony will put the jurors to sleep and and declare a mistrial.

            Once we learned that the pipe contained meth, we backtracked through the fascinating journey of how the pipe got to the analyst from the defendant. More checklist questions, more procedural debate, and testimony from five police officers & evidence clerks who had to verify the chain of custody. (One of the clerks had since retired but still had to come into court to testify.) We were even shown how a meth pipe is operated. By the time we got to the point where the patrol officer made the traffic stop, the suspense was killing us.

            The patrol officer said that she stopped the car just before midnight, observed the defendant in the passenger seat, and told everyone to stay put. She called for backup (the car was already on an APB) and more officers arrived. As they pulled up, the defendant got out of the car and started walking away from the road. Another officer told him to stop and lie down. As the officer searched the prone defendant he rolled him over and observed the meth pipe under his shirt tail, sticking out from the waistband of his pants. He said the defendant told him "Oh, that's just one pipe."

            The defense lawyer actually let his client testify, which in retrospect may perhaps have been a mistake. The defendant said that when they were pulled over he asked the driver (his girlfriend) "Uh-oh, you just picked up this car from your in-laws. Is there anything in here that's going to be trouble?" He says she handed him the meth pipe out of the center console. It was midnight and he couldn't see the pipe but he knew what one felt like, so he decided to hide it in his waistband under his shirt tail until he could get rid of it. As soon as he thought no one was looking, he got out of the car to throw it over a nearby hill. That's his story and he'd been sticking to it for the last two years.

            The defense lawyer couldn't do anything about "possession", the second charge, except to say that it wasn't his client's pipe and it wasn't his intent to hold onto the pipe. But his client told the jury that he knew it was a meth pipe and decided to hold on to it to get rid of it. His own testimony satisfied the elements of the "possession" charge. I don't understand why he didn't just plead guilty right away to that charge, or at least plea bargain. "Three strikes" or some other issue? We jurors weren't given the rest of that story.

            As for "promoting a dangerous drug", the defense claimed that the prosecution hadn't proven anything. Defense said prosecution hadn't tested for the defendant's fingerprints or saliva on the pipe, so they must not have enough evidence for a case. However the charge has just two elements, one of which is having any amount of meth (even 128 mg), and the second is acting "knowingly". The prosecutor said that his client didn't know there were meth crystals in the pipe (a small amount about the size of a pea) and didn't "know", so he couldn't be found guilty of acting knowingly.

            Luckily the judge had us covered. In his 34 pages (!) of jury instructions, one page went into great detail about "knowingly", including how jurors could draw conclusions from the defendant's actions. While you might not be able to figure out what's going through the defendant's mind ("What was he thinking?!?"), you were able to make judgments from his behavior. If he was acting guilty then he was acting "knowingly". If the defense objects to the judge's jury instructions then I guess he has to appeal the verdict.
            Last edited by Nords; July 14, 2010, 09:45 AM.
            Youth may be wasted on the young, but retirement is wasted on the old.
            Live like you're dying, invest like you're immortal.
            We grow old if we stop playing, but it's never too late to have a happy childhood.
            Forget about who you were-- discover who you are.

            Comment


            • #36
              Re: Jury duty part 2/2 again

              Both lawyers annoyed the heck out of us jurors. In my opinion the simplest concepts were explained in exceedingly great detail, perhaps due to problems with previous cases or appeals. However their pantomiming gave the impression that the jury was too stupid to understand even the CSI-Honolulu version of the story. Both lawyers' concluding arguments consisted of essentially stamping their feet, waving their hands in the air, and insisting "This case is so stunningly simple that even a caveman could reach a verdict!" After more than five hours of being lectured at, we were not inspired. But if they finished quickly then we could start deliberations before the judge's 4 PM adjournment.

              The judge read through his instructions fairly quickly (again the reporter transcribed his entire speech). Then since we 12 had survived the day, he dismissed the alternates. (Lucky guys.) We remaining jurors were sent to deliberations.

              Well, not so fast. First we had to learn more bureaucracy. The deliberations room is barely big enough for a table, 12 chairs, and a coffeepot. It's almost as cramped as the jury box, even more up close & personal with the people keeping you from going home. The "good" thing about the deliberations room is that it has adjoining bathrooms. We couldn't deliberate if one of us was in the bathroom, but one juror mentioned that 10 years ago (before they'd built this room), if even just one juror needed to pee then the entire jury pool had to stop and march together down the hall to the bathrooms. Talk about performance pressure.

              If we had questions for the judge, we couldn't just ask. We had to fill out a "jury communications" form, press a buzzer button to summon the extern, hand over the form, and wait for a response. The judge cautioned us that the lawyers were only required to be within 10 minutes of the courtroom, and working out the response with them could take up to 40 minutes. The lesson we learned was to avoid asking questions. We were also not allowed to read the trial transcript, so we had to go by our memories. We couldn't even read our notes to the other jurors. We were only allowed to use the notes to refresh our own memories, and then we had to explain that to the others in our own words.

              When we reached a verdict, we couldn't just buzz the extern and go back to the jury box. We had to send a new communications form (you can't reuse them!) saying only that we'd reached a verdict and then wait for the judge to recall us to the courtroom. In the courtroom we'd hand over the verdict form(s), a separate one for each charge. We were given prefilled verdict forms, one stating "Guilty" and the other "Not guilty". Getting a little sloppy with the paperwork has the potential for miscarriage of justice.

              We also had a basket of paper scraps for recording our votes. I probably shouldn't say this, but I can't believe that the court hasn't created a form for tallying the votes. When I was in the submarine force I literally started up nuclear reactors with far less paperwork than the contents of the deliberations room.

              You're paid $30/day + mileage to deliberate for as long as you want. However it was 3 PM Monday and we'd have to stop at 4 PM to let the court staff finish their workday. The judge announced that if we needed more time then we'd reconvene Tuesday morning at 9:30. This was very bad news because the previous Friday (during jury selection) he had clearly said that we'd be in court on Monday & Wednesday since he didn't hold trials on Tuesdays. One of the braver jurors (not me) finally raised his hand to ask if the judge meant Wednesday. He said "No, you'll deliberate Tuesday if you don't finish today." We reminded him of his Friday remarks and he said "Well, I can't be in trial on Tuesday, but you can be in deliberations." We said that we'd already made a bunch of other plans for Tuesday based on what he said on Friday, and it was pretty late on Monday to be making plan-changing phone calls. He said "That's the way I write the schedule."

              I think he knew on Friday that he was setting us up for this. It was pretty clear that the only way to avoid coming in on Tuesday was to finish deliberating on Monday. (I guess any objections to the judge's scheduling would have to wait for the appeal of the verdict.) So going into that deliberations room, all of us knew we needed to reach two unanimous decisions before 4 PM. No pressure!

              By the time the lawyers, the judge, and the extern had finished explaining our jobs to us, it was way past time for the first order of business: a bathroom break. As everyone leaped for the lua, I jokingly announced "First one in gets elected jury foreperson!" Everyone froze in their tracks and glared at me. Sorry.

              After potty break we had to elect a foreperson. (Tick tick tick...) We talked story for a few minutes, not really directly addressing the question. I cracked first and asked if anyone wanted to volunteer to be foreperson. After 11 more incredulous glares (including that of a former jury foreperson) I asked "Well, does anyone object if I volunteer to be foreman?" Oh, sure, no problem brah. Now I'm everyone's best buddy.

              We decided to start by voting on the first "promotion" charge to see if we all agreed. 10 "guilty", 2 "not". Crap. We talked about "knowingly" for a while and when we ran out of comments we voted again. 11-1. Double crap. As we pondered our next step, an experienced mediator proposed moving on to the second charge, and its vote also came out 11-1. Holy crap, a criminal jury's nightmare. We parsed our 34 pages of instructions and learned that "conceal" was considered part of "possess". A lightbulb went on over one juror's head. Next vote was 12-0, hallelujah! While everyone refilled their coffee cups, I buzzed the extern and scribbled out a quick note that we'd reached a verdict on the second charge.

              When she entered the jury room I realized that she'd had to unlock the door with her key. We 12 jurors had been locked into a room with steel doors and no emergency exits. Seems kinda fire-hazardous to me, but I wasn't going to debate it at 3:30 PM.

              As we settled back at the table to finish the first charge, the extern interrupted with a typewritten question from the judge-- were we still deliberating the first charge? Apparently "Well, DUH" is not considered proper legal decorum on the communications form, so I revised my response to "Yes." A few minutes later she interrupted again his new (typewritten) response: "Continue your deliberations." Well, double DUH.

              If you're the lone dissenting juror then you don't want to reveal your vote to the rest of the wolfpack and get torn apart over it. We approached this privacy issue by asking all the jurors to come up with "not guilty" reasons. Another juror (who eventually admitted they were the "not guilty" voter) said that while the defendant's guilty actions could be called "knowing", they weren't very effective. Why walk away from the car, not run? Why not just drop the pipe under the seat, crush it under the floormats, or throw it out the window? Why tell the officer "Oh, that's just one pipe"? We eventually decided that "knowingly" was not the same as "intelligently", and that the defendant could've been under considerable stress when he made his plans. Next vote: 12-0. "Woo-hoo, we finished before 4 PM!" Um, sorry, I meant to say that we'd finished our deliberations and convicted a man of two felonies.

              Of course we couldn't just buzz the extern and tell her that we'd reached the verdict. We had to fill out communications form #3 and wait for the judge to respond. While we waited we gathered our instructions, unused forms, voting slips, and notebooks into a foot-high pile on the table... probably for the extern to feed into a shredder. When we finally filed back into the courtroom we had to hand over the verdict forms and wait for the judge to read then. Then he asked us to announce our verdict.

              If any of the jurors still felt a little flippant at finishing so quickly and getting out of there, that emotion immediately vaporized when the verdict was announced. The defendant looked totally shocked and crushed by the verdict, and the young woman with him (his daughter?) dissolved in tears. The defense lawyer glared at us as if he'd been stuck with the stupidest jury to ever preside over such a travesty of justice. He asked the judge to poll the jurors, perhaps to learn whether we'd tricked some of us or made a mistake with the verdict forms. When we all announced "guilty", the judge set the sentencing date and said "Now we have the issue of raising the bail."

              The defense lawyer immediately looked shocked himself and said "Your honor, defendant has complied with bail for nearly two years and he's clearly demonstrated he's not a flight risk. Nothing has changed that!" The judge & prosecutor managed not to roll their eyes, let alone point out that there was now a guilty verdict and a sentencing hearing to contend with. Judge raised the bail to $25K and ordered the extern to phone the sheriff. The defendant looked like he was ready to collapse, and his daughter was even more upset.

              The judge thanked the jury and dismissed us. As we left the courtroom, the defendant was being taken to jail. I caught the 4:38 express bus, but for all I know he may still be trying to raise his bail bond. I'll keep an eye on the news websites but we may never learn the rest of the story.

              Two days of jury duty (plus mileage) is about $86. I've been retired for eight years and that amount won't make a significant difference to my life. After this experience I'm thinking of donating an extra $100 to a local charity. Any recommendations?
              Youth may be wasted on the young, but retirement is wasted on the old.
              Live like you're dying, invest like you're immortal.
              We grow old if we stop playing, but it's never too late to have a happy childhood.
              Forget about who you were-- discover who you are.

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              • #37
                Re: Jury Duty

                Originally posted by Nords View Post
                I'd have to check the fine print on the next summons, but I'm under the impression that you're not asked to serve more than once a year.
                In my case, one was municipal court, and the other was district court. However, having served on a jury in the former would have been an excuse to remove me from the latter, had it come to that.

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                • #38
                  Re: Jury Duty

                  I've had to do jury duty 3 times over my lifetime. Here in NY, they only call you once every three years. They pay you $11/day only if you cannot be paid by your employer and most employers pay for missing work due to jury duty. I don't recall anything about mileage reimbursement.

                  The first time I didn't even have to show up. Just call after 5 and was told no jurors were needed. The 2nd time was a civil case where an obviously well-off couple and their son were suing an obviously hard working single mother and her son for pain and suffering due to an accident during a pick-up baseball game. The kicker of it all was that the son who was suing was standing where he shouldn't have been and got hit by a bat. They asked me if I thought I could be completely neutral while deliberating this case. Now, I'm generally pretty quite - but this case really got on my nerves. I told the lawyers that it was cases like this that clogged the court system and gave our country a bad name as a sue happy nation. Apparently I hit a nerve with the rest of the jurors because they ended up dismissing all of us and had to call up a new pool. Definitely one of my prouder moments. I read in the paper a while later that the new jury found in favor of the couple doing the suing - and awarded them one cent.

                  The 3rd time was a drug and prostitution charge for a 3rd time offender. I convinced the judge that I couldn't possibly miss class and that finding a substitute was impossible. He let me go.

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                  • #39
                    Re: Jury duty part 2/2 again

                    Originally posted by Nords View Post
                    Two days of jury duty (plus mileage) is about $86. I've been retired for eight years and that amount won't make a significant difference to my life. After this experience I'm thinking of donating an extra $100 to a local charity. Any recommendations?
                    Yes! Donate to a facility or program that assists recovering meth addicts and their families!
                    ~ This is the strangest life I've ever known ~

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