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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: Have you served on Jury Duty?
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Mark Lensenmayer
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1605
From: Upper Arlington, OH
Registered: Sep 1999
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posted 01-11-2004 08:54 AM
Here in Central Ohio, jury duty lasts for 2 weeks and pays a gigantic $12 per day. Voting and motor vehicle registration lists are used to pull jurors. Most employers are OK with this, as they see it as a civic duty, so they give employees the time off with pay. It's still very difficult on the self-employed, though.
I've served 3 times, and been on 3 juries. It is a fascinating process, and one that is well worth the time IF you get on a jury. You see a side of the court system that is very different then the one on TV. I was even involved in one rather controversial case that had reporters calling me when the case was over.
We have a very enlightened municipal court jury commissioner, and he turns jury service into a very interesting, educational experience. He brings in judges to speak, and lets jurors go into courtrooms to listen to non-juried cases. The judges LOVE to come into contact with jurors, as they know most of them come from the voter list. Judges will speak with the jurors during the recesses, and even invite jurors into chambers for a chat. I gained a real appreciation of the court system from this, and also knew which judges I would vote for and which I wouldn't.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 01-11-2004 03:11 PM
Ken writes:
quote:
The case lasted five weeks and as far as I'm concerned if thats the way it happens most of the time then there's a lot wrong with the system.
I wasn't involved with your case so I really don't know if five weeks was too long or too short. But IMHO if it takes that long for both sides to have a fair hearing then so be it. If it doesn't actually waste time, we need to find ways of ensuring that if trials do take that long, then jurors can serve on them without risk to their personal or professional life.
quote:
There was one woman who fell asleep during the trial at least two times. She was happy to 'go with the majority'! There were others who thought 'He was a nice boy'! totally discounting the evidence presented.
That's really frightening and I hope I'm never at the hands of such people if I am ever tried. In the trial I served on, we were shown into the jury room after the judge's summing up, which was basically a two-day long lecture. I don't know how the system works in the US but here, the summing up is a crucial part of a criminal trial, in which the judge basically sets a series of questions which for which jury members have to arrive at an answer in order to reach their verdict. It's crucial because a great deal of criminal convictions are overturned on appeal because the defence alleges that the jury was misdirected, i.e. that being asked this question in that way lead them to return a false answer.
We're not allowed to reveal any issues around the discussion of trial evidence which took place, but I think I'm OK in recounting the following. I'd been making lots of notes during the trial - I think the reason was because, being a student, I was used to taking notes in lectures and this just came naturally to me. Once we got into the jury room there was a bit of a pregnant pause because no-one really knew how we were to 'start', except (as the court clerk had explained) that we had to elect a foreman. After a few minutes of pregnant pausing, I said that from my notes, it seemed to me that the judge had asked us to consider seven specific questions, and only if we could answer 'yes' to all of them could we deliver a guilty verdict and that 'no' to any of them would imply the presence of reasonable doubt. I can't remember the details (we had to hand our notes in at the end of the whole trial), but the questions were along the lines of 'did she intend this money to be paid in this way?', 'was she aware that she was committing an offence by doing X?'. So why not, I suggested, start by going round the table on each question in turn and then holding a debate on any 'no' answers which resulted?
That suggestion got me nominated as foreman and I chaired the discussion just like I suggested it should happen. There were a couple of 'I'm not 100% sure about...' responses, but whenever that happened others around the table supplied the relevant information needed to resolve the uncertainty. By mid-afternoon we were completely certain that the defendant was guilty of all the charges against her, according to the criteria the judge had told us to look at. Before I called the court clerk in at the end I said that we were just going to sit for five minutes and that if anyone, for any reason and however silly it may seem, was worried about the fact that we were about to convict the defendant, please say something. No-one did.
The whole thing couldn't have been less than 12 Angry Men (not least because eight were women!), apart from first five minutes or so of the jury room scene. It didn't reveal a little seed of doubt, just the start of a three-hour checking process which concluded that the defendant was guilty, end of story. I think we did the whole thing right and have never lost any sleep in my role over it.
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Aaron, No need to be ashamed, Leo asked a question and Daryl answered three minutes later, with a perfect answer backed up with the research. Thank you Daryl....
Seconded, and don't feel too bad. There's a café in Exeter, Devon, England called the Boston Tea Party. I once had the honour of explaining to someone born in Boston, MA, what that title referred to! Admittedly though, she'd emigrated to Devon aged 3...
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