Jury Duty

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Yes. Selling drugs. Guilty!

were they good drugs?

We didn’t get to sample them.

Twice. Both civil cases.

One was landlord tenant. Tenants were claiming landlord was only evicting them in order move his relatives into one of the units as a way to raise the rent on the unit. The entire jury had sympathy for the tenants, but they could prove their case, and it is-was legal in L.A. for a landlord to have a certain percentage of units rented to family members. The case was "trying" because no one spoke English, so we had to listen to all the testimony translated from Tagalog.

The second time was a case involving a contract dispute.between two businesses. The jury sat through a week of testimony and evidence, with lots of instruction from the judge. On the afternoon jury deliberation was to start, we first went to lunch, and when we came back, the judge said the two parties had settled out of court, so we were dismissed ... lol.

typo ^^^ meant to write that the tenants COULDN'T prove their case

When I scroll past this thread I keep getting excited because I think it says Julia Duffy.

R7 Please get your eyes checked. Not even close.

bump

[quote] what was your verdict?

That we were HUNG. I was a braggart for weeks.

I'm currently going through the first stage of it. Misdemeanor domestic battery case. So far it's been three days of us answering the judge's questionnaire, no questions from the lawyers yet. Beyond aggravating.

Day care owner accused of shaking a 6 month old child causing his death. Guilty of manslaughter - never doing jury duty again. That was so sad.

Double homicide. Yikes. Wasn't selected. Thankfully.

R10 Last surviving cast member of This Was Burlesque.

Twice.

First time was assault with a deadly weapon, but the victim was called to the stand under duress and didn't cooperate well enough with the prosecutor to give us the evidence we needed to convict: not guilty.

Second time was rape. It was clear from voir dire that the defendant was accused of breaking into the victim's home and raping her. On the day the trial was set to start, the judge ruled that the rape that the defendant was already serving time for could be admitted as evidence. He committed it after the one we were going to hear, and the second victim lived across the street from the first. He accepted a bench trial under the logic he could appeal that ruling later.

I’ve done it twice. Picked for the jury twice. Both cases were just ridiculous. A waste of time. Both times I missed a week of work unpaid. Now I just throw away the summons!

I've been called many times, but I've always been able to get out of it by medical reasons.

Once, more than forty years ago. Medical malpractice—we found the hospital responsible but cleared the doctor. Five minutes after the verdict, we learned that it was retrial (hung jury) and the “innocent “ doctor was an active alcoholic at the time of the incident and had several other malpractice suits pending, but none of that could be presented in the trial. I get why—it would have been prejudicial to the specific case, but we felt like idiots. Also, that it’s easier to find a corporation guilty than an individual.

Twice, both criminal.

One was a murder. Two kids robbed a man in the final stages of cancer and beat him to death. They got less than $20 from him. Two week long trial. GUILTY!

One was theft. An18 or19 year old accused of breaking into houses at night and taking a credit card, laptop and small kitchen tv. The trial was almost two weeks long! NOT GUILTY. The supposed confession had serious flaws in it and I did not believe the cop who took it. I told the jury when we started deliberating the flaws I saw and let it be known I wasn't going to find him guilty. I convinced them all!

I served twice. The first was when I had just turned 18 and still in high school Assault and battery. Guilty. The second was a burglary case with lots of complications -expert witnesses, multiple interpreters, contempt charges, in fact all of the usual TV courtroom drama. Also guilty.

[quote]I’ve done it twice. Picked for the jury twice. Both cases were just ridiculous. A waste of time. Both times I missed a week of work unpaid.

I saw Gayle King on TV a couple of weeks ago talking about being called for jury duty (she even left her morning show a few minutes early one day so she could get there on time). She was back on the show for the rest of that week, however, so I assume she did not get picked.

It made me wonder if a celebrity has ever actually been picked to serve on a jury. Seems all you ever hear is that one will get called to go but they don’t get selected. They just show up, then go home. (And of course they get publicity for having “done their civic duty” like the plebeians do.) Of course it’s understandable that they wouldn’t be picked — a celebrity presence on a jury would likely be far too disruptive — it’s just aggravating to think how regular working people have to put up with being forced to serve but the rich and famous not so much.

I've served seven times, and was put on a case five times. They were a mix of civil and criminal.

My total experience has been that the other jurors were all very serious about the cases and only once did they get it wrong. I was an alternate in a month-long personal injury case where the plaintiff actually proved nothing, but the softies gave him 1.7 million bucks and a small local church went bankrupt. Both I and the other alternate voted for no damages, but the jurors proper went 5-1 for the sadly injured plaintiff. I cried when I heard, it was a trial that lasted nearly four weeks and you get very invested.

In the others we all reached the right verdict but once it got a bit testy deliberating.

I’ve served three times on civil cases: the first was settled before trial, the second was a 3-week trial (dispute between employers and employees) with a hung jury. During voir dire for the third civil case, I was dismissed after the lawyers discovered that I was part of a hung jury in the past.

[quote]It made me wonder if a celebrity has ever actually been picked to serve on a jury.

A month before his death I sat on two [italic]voire dires[/italic] with JFK Jr. He still had his leg in a cast and was hobbling with crutches. He didn't get put on a case I guess. Still, there is almost always a familiar face or two in the big jury room in Manhattan, in my extensive experience as a prospective juror.

Yes. Assault. The fucker was guilty.

It was in one way an interesting case. The arresting cop looked at the wrong notes and screwed up his testimony, leading to a mistrial. The defendant gambled that a second jury in a retrial would not believe the cop for this reason. He lost. This was 1990s.

Called several times, served once. Sexual assault. Trial went on for 2 weeks. Not guilty.

[quote]It made me wonder if a celebrity has ever actually been picked to serve on a jury.

R21 Don't know if he counts as a celebrity but General Jim Mattis showed up and served for jury duty in his home town (Richland, WA) right before he was nominated for Secty of Defense.

R7, that’s really interesting!

Once. Burglary. Guilty.

Also, another juror and I went on a couple dates after. Had sex. He got instantly clingy. I kindly but abruptly ended it. So there's that.

A couple of the other jurors were absolute dumb loons. I wondered how they could actually do day-to-day things like pass a drivers test, do banking, tie their shoes, let alone follow the trial.

I got called in Chicago to Cook County in the late 2000s, I was 18. The case was an elderly black grandma selling crack. I didn’t get to serve.

bump

I’ve been eliminated from the jury pool in Massachusetts since turning 70 last year.

^ Lucky you. It's 75 where I live.

Child abuse. Not guilty. The entire case was ridiculous and the mother was really being persecuted for being poor white trash. The witnesses were weak and the social worker who made the charge didn't even show up in court. No one on the jury thought the mom was guilty. We only deliberated for two hours and that was mostly because they brought us lunch and we were hungry.

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I was called for jury duty, only to find that I was in a crowd of about 75 potential GRAND JURORS. Amazingly, I was selected, and served a six month term.

Even though our role was to issue indictments (or "true bills" as they are known) this experience changed my entire perspective, especially with regard to the death penalty. This was about five years ago, and I still cannot forget some of the appalling things I saw and heard while on that jury.

I was called for the first Phil Spector trial which hung. I was dismissed because I had a previous encounter with him. My friend was Linda Ronstadts bass player. I went backstage and hung out and Spector was there. Linda came out and spoke to him but the show was about to start He grabbed her and insisted she stay there. Her people came and pulled her away and Linda told him to go back to the fucking zoo. When I heard about Lana Clarkson's death I wondered how scared she must have been being alone in a house with a guy who was clearly unhinged. I couldn't have unhung the jury based on what I've read, but I was sorry I told the story when I heard the first verdict.

I was suppose to, twice but never showed up

One time I had a summons to go down to the court and it was some case about a grandma who got busted for selling heroin. My services ended up not being needed unfortunately.

In California, they send it by regular mail, so they can't prove you got it. No signature.

DUI. Felt bad for the kid (25 and cute) but had to vote to convict. (San Francisco, 2007)

R42, Was there any VPL in court?

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Guilty. Of Love in the First Degree.

Yes, kidnapping at the point of a gun and rape. We could not come to a verdict. Has frustrated me for 25 years.

Three times, twice as foreman. First was a slip & fall case where a man claimed he fell inside a grocery store due to negligence and hurt himself. Second was a gang related murder trial. Third was a former priest accused of swindling someone.

Most called for jury duty are for CIVIL cases

I was on a rape trial about ten years ago. It was pretty depressing. Olivia Benson has taught me to always believe victims, but this lady was a welfare queen in the projects who had sex (anal was decidedly on the menu) for what she thought was a baggie of crack cocaine but later turned out to be shavings from a bar of Ivory soap. A fight ensued, she pulled a kitchen knife on the guy, he beat the ever-loving shit out of her, she ran out to a pay phone to tell 911 she’d been raped.

We acquitted him on the rape charge but found him guilty of aggravated assault, which I believe carried mandatory jail time.

As I said, depressing all around to see how the other half lives.

[quote] I was sorry I told the story when I heard the first verdict.

R38, what do you mean "told the story"? I'm assuming that, during jury selection (voir dire), you told the judge that you already had an opinion of Spector, based on the Linda Ronstadt story that you heard.

When you told the story (during jury selection), did the entire jury pool hear it? (Usually, you tell that story only to the judge, so that the entire pool is not affected by hearing it.)

R47 So, the rest of the jury thought the woman voluntarily went for her rape at gunpoint?? That would bother me too...thats why twice I was called and twice I never bothered to show up. I never called. The Florida courts promised to get me. That was well over 10 yrs ago..still waiting in another state for the Brevard County sheriff to show up to get me..

R52, are you also R7?

5 times - they love me. 1 criminal and 4 civil. For the criminal, child endangerment, hit and run, driving w/o license and insurance, and 2 other things that I can't remember. He was guilty; however, I strongly compelled the others to not charge for hit and run (which I was successful at).

In another case, I was talking to 2 of the other younger jurors about Seinfeld and they didn't know what that was....

Called in twice, served both times. First was a murder case, he was found guilty and I believe he ended up in jail for life. The second was a DUI and we let him go on reasonable doubt; cops' paperwork, field testing, and lab report were a mess.

Called many times. Served once and really enjoyed it. I normally get dismissed off the bat based on the fact that I used to be loss prevention and had arrested and testified against about 400 people.

The case I got on was a kidnapping, assault charge with other charges that I don't remember because it was so long ago. The defendant was a dirt bag and we found him guilty on all but one charge (which I ended up hanging the jury on because they just wanted to say he was guilty on all counts even though there was no evidence for the one count). I fought like hell to change their minds on that and I did. He still went to prison. I HATE people that are just like, "Well, he's guilty of one, so he must be guilty of all."

I really enjoy going to jury duty. Gets me away from work and I get paid from my company anyway. Love the short days and long lunches. And I enjoy the process. I remember walking into the jury room on the one case I got on and one of the other jurors said, "I just want to know one thing. HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET ON THIS CASE?" Not sure why they picked me but it's likely because I have an honest face and I think I'm pretty fair in how I view the whole, "innocent until proven guilty" stuff.

I don't encourage, but for those who want to get out of jury duty, postpone to the week between Christmas and New Years - no new trials are started that week. If that week isn't an option, pick another week that has a holiday in it (fewer are started that week).

I was on a trial of a guy who thought his girlfriend had cheated on him, so he stalked her outside a bar and slashed her face savagely with a razor. He had guys he worked at a warehouse with him claim he was playing basketball with them at the time. They were clearly lying, so 11 of us voted guilty on the first round. However, this one stupid woman refused to convict and wouldn't say why. So we ended up having to come back the next day to try again.

It turns out this moron's son had a drug problem, and she blamed the court for not giving him jail time, resulting in him ruining his life. So she somehow thought she was paying them back by not voting to convict. Insane. She finally relented and the guy was sentenced to, IIRC 18 years.

Never served.

I was called twice for jury selection, with one trial cancelled and the other selection aborted before it began (I forget the reason.) The third and last time I wrote a letter to explain that I was in the process of moving from the U.S. to another country and would be gone before the jury selection date.

I've been called about 7 times and served twice. I work for attorneys. The judge on one case I served on was the judge on several civil matters my attorneys had on their desks. That came up during voir dire when they asked me where I worked and when I mentioned the name of the firm I saw the judge perk up and so I had to tell everybody about it. The case was an auto accident where the plaintiff was badly injured when a delivery truck plowed into him at a stoplight so insurance companies were involved. Both sides tried to bounce me from the jury but they had used all their strikes before I got questioned so I had to serve. We found for the Plaintiff because the delivery truck's attorney basically didn't try to defend the case.

Another time years later when I was called it was to serve on a criminal jury. I fucking hated the law firm job I had at the time. That firm's rule was that if you were released within three hours after you had to report you were supposed to come to work. I reported at 8:30 and was released at 11, so I was supposed to go in. Since I hated that job I went home instead and drove to Best Buy and bought a new TV. I reached out to work around 1 pm to tell them I 'd just been released. I stayed home the rest of the day and I found out the next day they had a big court filing that went bad and were at the office until 9 that night.

r8 Unfortunate, I have tears in both retinas since cataract surgery..what was suppose to improve my vision totally skewed me up.

Just had one tear repaired by laser