Jury Duty

[PDG]

Last week I attended Jury Duty. I'm not a big fan and I don't really mean to offend anyone that is. That being said, I stumbled upon this site (http://con.ca/issues/4/1/285)(pop-ups). I read it with great skepticism.

Well, jury duty finally arrived and I was chosen to enter the pool for a Murder 1 case. There were 50 of us and I had to somehow get out of this. I eventually got out by saying some silly stuff. What I found most interesting though, was the State Attorney's first words.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, let me ask you a question... When you all opened the mail and saw the notice, why didn't you just throw it out?" Everyone sat quietly and stared.

"We didn't know we could" said one man in the corner.

"I thought I would go to jail if I did" said another person.

My jaw dropped. Did he just say what I think he did? I never knew that was an option and I remembered that website.

Just fyi...

[Silky]

Damn, how come no one ever really thinks about it like that??? I had jury duty in federal court a couple of years ago. I ended up sitting on two trials...one a drug case, and the other the case of a judge who was caught shuffling checks from one account to another. Interesting stuff...but I would have preferred not to have to sit day after day in a jury room waiting to be called.

I'll remember this in the future....:)

[Dave]

Our system for jury duty is pretty much the same though I think the odds of being called up for duty are a little lower, it is more or less compulsory on people on the voting register (which is compulsory!) with certain limits on age and health. Once called for duty the odds of actually being on a jury are somewhat higher, the defense attorneys do not have the same amount of say in who is and who isn't on the jury. I believe they can only challenge two potential jurors at the most. That means the number actually called up per jury case is a lot lower here.

I've not had that dubious privilidge so I consider it my duty to "answer" the call if it's made. Wether I'd enjoy the experience is another thing, I mean I missed and got withdrawal symptoms from PA just today! :)

[Scott]

Well..shooooooooot... I could have used this info a few months ago.