I served my jury duty today (Superior Court rather than District Court) by showing up and being let go, as they did not call my number for jury selection. The court officer let us know that it was a murder trial when he released us. As much as I’ve always wanted to sit through a trial, I’m glad I did not have to sit for a murder trial.
I was called up a few months ago. The issue was a contractor that had done some kind of work without a license. Both the plaintiff and defendant had the same (not super common) last name, so sounded like a family conflict - possibly plaintiff needed something repaired, relative said they could do the repair for cheap, relative did a really bad job and possibly caused further damage to whatever it was, now plaintiff is suing because relative created an even more expensive repair and plaintiff wants them to pay for the damage they did. That’s just speculation, though, based on what was briefly presented.
I was dismissed because the courthouse was far from when I live and it took me nearly 2 hours to get there (bus to train to bus). I would not have managed that every day.
I’m the person who always gets picked for jury duty. Called up 3 times, seated on 3 juries. 2 criminal cases, 1 civil case.
Armed Robbery (2)
Civil case on vehicular accident damages
Both criminal cases had juries that were sober, reflective and made me proud to be able to serve with other members of my community.
Civil case was a train wreck of attorneys and jurors. The judge was the bright spot.
Court staff were amazing in all three courts.
Edited to add: the two criminal cases took 3-4 days to fully present, 1-2 days of deliberations. Civil case presented for 2 days, 2 days of deliberations.
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I have been on 2 different cases. The criminal case was a car theft across state lines. The civil case had to do with someone buying a house that had issues which were not disclosed. The people on the juries with me all did a great job in deliberations.
Twice - i’m the only one who enjoyed it but it’s a lot of down time.
Both in CA - never called in TN in 19 years.
Once was civil - a business dispute - boring - it settled. I forget what it was about.
The other was a gang banger saw a different gang member in the park in Fountain Valley and shots went, Someone was hit but not killed. He got off from the highest charge but we got him on the 2nd charge and I remember because he was in a gang, the penalty was enhanced. We never saw the penalty but somehow I heard it was 30 years.
The thing that stood out to me, in addition to the time wasting (like maybe they were on 3-4 hours a day and then sent us to lunch or home) - was that the defense attorney (public) and the client grew very close and both cried as the verdict was read.
Off topic, but if you want a laugh, I enjoyed this show. Jury Duty (TV Series 2023) - User reviews - IMDb
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It’s been a while since I served, but I used to get called up for jury duty (seemingly) all the time. It used to be that if you got called to jury duty that you had to go to the courthouse 2 days a week for a month. Thankfully, that practice has ended.
During one of those months I was selected 2 times for a jury. One was a murder trial and the other was for something related to drugs…intent to distribute or something like that (a criminal case). In one case the defendant was found guilty and in the other not guilty. For both cases, I was in the minority opinion (I was in a state that only required 10 of 12 jurors to find guilty…the state has since changed the law).
Since those experiences, however, whenever I’ve been called into voir-dire (the process by which jurors are selected), I’ve always indicated that I have a high (though not impossible) threshold for overcoming reasonable doubt, and I’ve never been selected since.
In fall 1988 (when I had a 6 month old baby), I was selected to serve on a jury. It was a boundary dispute. The clerk of courts told the jury that the trial would last three or four days, and it probably would have. BUT the judge had other plans, and so did both sets of lawyers. There were days when we jury members sat in the jury room for 1/2 day only to be dismissed because others were busy doing something else.
The trial lasted for three weeks.
For a boundary dispute, the main witnesses are…surveyors…and believe me, they are very dry. We saw tons of drawings (none agreed with others), and heard at least 6 surveyors testify.
The judge finally ordered us all to do a walk of the property using the descriptive info from the woman who owned the land. She was spot on (things like…walk ten paces from the road, and turn left at the big rock). The property had been in her family for over 100 years. She knew her boundaries.
The guy suing her was a wealthy person who bought a house and some acreage from this elderly woman. He claimed he had 12 acres, and she insisted it was 9. He was starting to clear some land on her property…which is how this all started.
She won…easily.
At the end, the entire jury asked why this case even came to trial, and wasn’t settled. Both sides lawyers told us that they had encouraged their clients to settle out of court and both refused.
Everyone is entitled to their day in court, I guess.
I was chosen for jury duty once, even though I am an attorney and at that point was a retired judge. It was a battery case and took a lot longer than it should have. We initially had one person who wasn’t 100% convinced that the accused didn’t do ANYTHING. After lunch, we explained that wasn’t what we were being asked to determine and were unanimous in acquitting
Were you picked as forman? Forperson?
I can’t believe you were picked!
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There was a retired fire chief juror who said pick her as foreperson so they did. I was trying to be quiet observer but he just wanted us to be done.
Most of us felt the case should never have gone to trial because evidence was SO weak but it did. I was surprised not to be excused as well.
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I’ve been summoned for jury duty 6 times. Four times for Superior Court and twice for municipal court. I’ve been selected as a juror a few times. A couple of them were criminal cases and two were civil cases. I have been excused from my most recent summons. Several years ago, I received a questionnaire for a potential juror on a federal trial. I didn’t mail it back and never heard anything about it after that.
I was the foreman on my jury case.
I served on a medical malpractice case. It was fascinating and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Our foreman was the groundskeeper at a (very snooty) country club. It was a good lesson in not judging a book by its cover- he showed up in his overalls expecting to be dismissed (we were the only jury seated that day) and he assumed he’d be behind a rake or a blower by 11 am. He was really unbelievable. English his third language, but he maintained an orderly jury room, made sure that nobody got bullied but everyone had a chance to speak. And he cracked down on ANY conversations during the break that were about the trial (judge’s orders). We returned a very speedy “not guilty” thanks to his skill at managing the room.
We were all very sad. Nobody likes to see a human being in pain with a sub-optimal medical outcome. But the evidence was overwhelming that the doctor was not at fault, and had warned the patient several times that he was non-compliant and that the outcome of not taking his meds as prescribed would be terrible.
Gave me faith in my fellow citizens.
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I’ve been called up several times but always dismissed due to immediate family law enforcement/FBI connections even though I say I can be impartial. 
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I have a boatload of law enforcement/legal etc. entanglements… which was not relevant for Medical Malpractice (according to the judge). But they did not want physicians or physician-adjacent people on the jury, that was clear!
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Only once - a drug/gang related murder trial.
The process of the case was interesting to me, but it was kind of freaky worrying about people who might follow you home or something, especially when we found the defendant guilty. We had to meet behind someplace and they bussed us to the courthouse, but it would have been pretty easy to follow the bus and follow one of us home.
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I just got called for US District Court for the first time. Not at all sure what to expect!
I received a very panicked phone call from a colleague after I retired. She had just been selected to serve on a murder trial jury…start date the next morning. She wondered if I could meet her immediately to discuss her job, which she hoped I could fill in for. Of course I did.
Luckily, this case was settled in less than a week with some plea bargain or something. But it could have gone on for months!
Long ago, in college, I was on a civil case that took nearly 4 weeks. I was in a business law class and hoped that would get me excused, but nope. It was really a contract dispute and I was frustrated by how long it took. We basically agreed that the contract had to be followed.