From Massachusetts and my daughter attends college out of state.
She received a summons to serve Grand Jury Duty in a couple of weeks while off on her summer break and she is actually quite interested in learning about the court system and is happy to fulfill her civic responsibility of serving jury duty. The length of time that Grand Jurors are made to serve though is very concerning to us.
Her fall classes start right after Labor Day and I’m wondering if anyone has ever heard of if an out of state college student is chosen to serve on GJD if they are ever held from returning back to college to start they’re fall classes on time?
If she reports to jury duty, they will ask her availability and she will say that she won’t be available for the fall. It’s POSSIBLE that she’d be required to serve if chosen, but unlikely.
Grand juries do not meet continuously for those 3 months, but people need some flexibility and some jobs just aren’t that flexible. If someone is pregnant, may not be flexible. Someone running for political office this Nov may not be available.
So with her college being in NJ and 7 hours away, it may not be that flexible. Well shall see though.
Thank you.
When my son was in college 350 miles away, we just wrote a note and they excused him.
It might be a great experience for your daughter. Call after the July 4 holidays, explain her status/situation & ask what times & days does the grand jury meet to see if she can fit it into her schedule.
Grand juries typically only hear one side, thus the oft repeated saying that any DA can indict a ham sandwich.
I did some research on grand jury votes about 20 years ago. In one case, a grand juror’s vote counted–after contested in court–even though the juror slept for 4 days of the 7 days of testimony.
P.S. This may be a rare learning opportunity if your daughter later attends a trial as a spectator of one who was indicted during her tenure as a grand juror. Really eye opening to compare impressions held after hearing just one side versus a court presentation which includes cross examination.
I served as a replacement Grand Juror. In my county, grand jurors serve one day a week for 6 months. If a juror has to drop out, a replacement is named. So it is possible that your daughter can serve for a few weeks or months and then be replaced.
It was an interesting time. We heard a lot of drug cases, credit card stealing cases, some burglaries. They saved the violent and sex crimes for the end of the day. Those were hard to hear.
We did indict most of the suspects, but there were some that we couldn’t vote to do that with. The requirement was that the police and prosecutors had to show probable cause that 1) a crime was committed, 2) it was committed in our county, 3) the named suspect was the one that committed the crime. Sometimes we couldn’t quite agree that the actions observed met the definition of crimes in our county. But mostly we indicted.
There were parents scalding infants and fathers raping daughters. People can do horrible things to one another. But 12 ordinary citizens got to decide whether the police had enough evidence to proceed. It was worth the investment of time.
My relative was a grand juror and also found it very interesting. Her employer paid the difference between the nominal amount they received as jurors and her wages, so it wasn’t the financial hardship it could have been.
If your young adult explains her geographical and academic restrictions when she reports for grand jury selection, they will definitely help figure out how that is handled so she won’t have to miss school. She won’t be the first or last person who has to be in a particular location in a specific time frame.