Jury duty - a waste of my time

Parent Cafe
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<p>u<em>u</em>dad: I understand - if you had been allowed to accomplish something, you would have felt differently, that’s true.</p>

<p>But there are so many things going on behind the scenes, and having a jury pool available is important to the system, unfortunately. The best way is the method others have alluded to, which is calling in each day. But those who call in and are requested to appear, still may have to sit around. Maybe they should post this over the room for the jury pool: “We also serve who only stand and wait.”</p>

<p>I served on a criminal trial once. Sat around the jury pool doing zip the first day, then got inpaneled on the jury day two. Sat for a week or so listening to the testimony. In the jury room, when we finally got to deliberate, these are some of the things I heard (I kid you not):</p>

<ul>
<li><p>“Well, he was guilty on the first twelve counts, so he must be guilty of all the other counts”</p></li>
<li><p>“If he didn’t do this crime, he probably did a lot of others he didn’t get caught for.”</p></li>
<li><p>[after we voted unanimously that he was guilty of second degree murder, but were deadlocked on a weapons charge] “What are you guys, criminal-coddling liberals?”</p></li>
</ul>

<p>I vowed in that jury room that I would never try to get out of jury duty. I wouldn’t want my family to be judged solely by people like that !</p>

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<p>I guess the up side is that it’s a jury of your peers but the down side is that - it’s a jury of your peers.</p>

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<p>I was on a jury for an arson case and I swear that this was a trick that the DA used. At the tail end of the testimony, with the defendant on the stand, the DA confronted him with his past tax returns. He (the DA) never linked the tax returns to the arson but did show that the guy probably cheated (in a very big way) on his taxes. (I still wonder why the judge allowed that part of the evidence.)</p>

<p>However, this ploy backfired - at least on me. This made me take a second look at all of the other testimony that the DA presented relative to the arson case with a jaundiced eye. After several days of deliberation we finally found him not guilty of arson - although we all thought that he probably was guilty of other things and quite possibly of the arson - just not beyond a reasonable doubt.</p>

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<p>u<em>u</em>dad - enjoyed that line! Perked my day right up.</p>

<p>Fundingfather - you and I usually disagree on pretty much everything. But after reading your post, I’d be happy to have you on a jury for me any day of the week.</p>