Gaming and Jury Duty Discrimination?

[Glyfair]

I have only been on one jury, though my last 16 years abroad probably account for that.

I had jury duty once (compared to my brother & mother who seem to be called as soon as their "immunity" is over). I was called once, and it turned out that one of the witnesses was someone I fired for theft when I was a retail manager. Not only did I get out of it, I think I gave one side or the other some ammunition against a witness.

It does point up a major flaw in our system, however - that one can literally be driven to bankruptcy by a jury summons.

This might vary in region, but you can usually get out of jury duty for financial hardship. One of the questions I was asked was whether I could afford to work a long trial.

"Look, all I'm saying is, you can tell someone's guilty just by lookin' at 'em."

Judges aren't stupid. There was a recent case in the national news where someone tried all sorts of far fetched comments like this to get out of jury duty. Either the judge cited him with contempt of court, or he threatened it if the juror didn't serve (I think it was a rural area where getting enough jurors for cases was often a problem).

 

[S'mon]

Uh ... okay. In other words, you're arguing philosophy. My comment was grounded in modern reality. There's really no conflict.

The reality of course is that judges will seek to increase the power of judges through their judgements. The rest of us ought to be on guard against the conflation of "rule of law" with "rule of the judges", unless you fancy living in Mega City One.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Re: the $15/day - some jobs actually cover jury duty, with variable amounts of time covered.

Most employers do. If your employer doesn't, you may also be entitled to ask the state or county in which you live for further funds. Consult with your lawyer.

A judge explained this very well during jury selection on a trial that I was monitoring. (I'm a claims adjuster. I never get picked for juries.) Jury duty is a hardship. It's not an undue hardship - you get excused if it is - but it's a civic responsibility. I can go along with that. If I had to ever serve for a couple weeks and lose some pay, I'd grumble. However, it's part of the US system that I think works for the most part, so I would do it. In my book, having authorized expense for a number of civil trials and seen them through, the jury system works overall.

Vis a vis OJ - I have an unusual opinion on that case. I still haven't seen all the evidence. However, Henry Lee testified, if I recall correctly, that the DNA match was not significantly close enough to be Simpson. Now, the evidence collection appears to have been badly botched. But based on what the court had, and the tests performed, I believe Henry Lee. He is an amazing criminologist. (And he even testified at a trial that was on one of my cases - we lost.)

 

[WayneLigon]

the prosecution is very adept at explaining scientific evidence to the uneducated. (It's even easier now, since the advent of C.S.I..

There have been some interesting articles that Law and Order and especially CSI have made it harder for them to explain the foresic evidence since people now think they know something about the science since they watched a program made for dramatic entertainment.

I've been called for jury duty twice - once we sat there all day; my group was called in once, but I didn't get picked. Second one, I did get picked and it was a one-day trial. We ended in a hung jury; we were split 6-7. After another review and meeting with the judge, we split 7-6 - one person had been convinced one way, another had been convinced the other. So, we hung. Honestly, we beleived that while the defendent was probably guilty of something, he wasn't guilty of this one thing. The person bringing the claim lied about two things which were revealed in cross-examination and her own sister got up on the stand and related events that totally conflicted with what the claimant said. So, we didn't trust her either.

Dang. I hope they're wrong about that hung jury thing meaning you never get called back. I'm a civil servant, so I get paid my regular salary for as long as it takes - if we were sequestered for a year, I'd draw my pay plus get paid by the court. I like having a paid day that doesn't count against my annual leave, especially if I just sit in a comfortable room and read all day.

I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I found the process extremely interesting.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I found the process extremely interesting.

I agree. I was called for jury duty twice when I was still living in Washington. First time I just went for the free pass but the second time I wound up on a jury for about a week. Case stemmed from an auto accident and the victim in the accident wanted to be paid for additional operations.

The victim had existing problems with his back and we decided that while he deserved SOME additional money for those problems being exacerbated by the accident the surgeries he wanted the money for were definitely elective surgeries and largely addressing the problems he'd had before and NOT from the accident. I think we awarded something like 1/10th of what the plaintiff was asking.

However, a lot of the trial was spent TEDIOUSLY arguing over chiropractics - "It's not REAL medical science/ Yes it is/ the chiropractor actually caused more problems than the accident/ No, it was ALL because of the accident..." There were also a couple of quiet discussions at the bench with the lawyers and the judge when the driver of the car that caused the accident testified. I suspect that had to do with certain elements of his testimony having been ruled inadmissable for some reason (I think there may have been some kind of altercation afterward or the driver had been drunk) and it kept drifting in that direction. The trial was about whether or not there should be some additional money and how much that should be, not who was actually at fault in the accident and why.

Hardest part of it was that it was all up to us on the jury as to HOW MUCH money was appropriate. It wasn't just guilty/not guilty. We had only been given superficial information on what the surgeries were going to cost so we didn't have much choice but to just ballpark it. You also meet some... interesting people on a jury

 

[Rel]

THIS JUST IN: I checked and the "no politics" rule still applies to this thread. So don't go there. Thanks

 

[WayneLigon]

I suspect that had to do with certain elements of his testimony having been ruled inadmissable ...

We had that as well, where the judge told us to not take into account X, Y and Z. That's a lot harder than it sounds like.

 

[Dire Bare]

I do not question that modern statists seek to discredit the duty of the jury to judge the justice of the act under which prosecution is sought. Attempting to discredit this essential jury power is in line with their goal of subjugating the people to tyranny in the guise of "law." That reinforces why juries must be vigilant to judge the act as well as the defendant.

Whoah. Now we're getting political!

Time to sit back and enjoy the debate before the mods come rolling in!

Edit: Oops. Too late, mods called it before I realized! I should read to the end of the thread before hitting the reply button!

 

[FunkBGR]

Schweet -

I got jury duty in the mail the other day - first time! This thread came just in time!

 

[dogoftheunderworld]

... He also said that if they ever asked someone their hobbies and they mentioned D&D, they would have no chance at jury duty. ...

They're just never sure if you are going to show up as Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil that day