<p>dmd77, what a wonderful story! I can almost see the Russian woman’s face as you described the conversation. Thanks for sharing that.</p>
<p>I’ve been called for jury duty perhaps a half dozen times and actually served on juries for 3 or 4 of those. And the big weakness I saw in the jury system is that IMO 12 is too many. If you get enough people together you will eventually get an idiot in the group. </p>
<p>The worst example I experienced was a criminal case (domestic violence) where during jury deliberations one juror decided that a separate version of the facts of the case, that he dreamed up himself, must be true. Because he said he “knew how these things happen.” Eleven jurors were ready to convict, but no amount of argument could disuade the guy that his theory was irrelevant, and not to mention contrary to the judges instructions, even though neither the prosecution nor the defense had presented any evidence or arguments along that line. I wanted to jump across the jury room table and choke him. We finally convicted the defendant on a lesser charge as a sort of compromise position.</p>
<p>It seems like every jury I’ve served on had at least one juror who was really out to lunch. Like I said, 12 jurors is too many. I’d say 6 is about right.</p>
<p>In CA we can take notes. In fact they provided note pads and pens.</p>
<p>coureur, you’re right that playing the odds, one juror will most likely be an idiot.</p>
<p>I served on one jury where the sole evidence with any credibility was the (stupid) defendant, who had confessed to police. His statement was admitted into evidence. In fact, other than an eye witness (ex girlfriend, midnight, no lights) it was the only evidence. The defendant had confessed to the robbery, but said he only had a knife, not a gun. (Having a gun would have increased his sentence by several years.)</p>
<p>So one of the jurors said, we can’t believe the defendant when he claims he only had a knife. So I said, umm, we only have his confession as evidence. If you believe him when he confessed to the robbery, why would you not believe him when he says he only had a knife? The guy just said, you can’t believe any of those [you can guess what he said].</p>
<p>So I ask any of you, if you have the chance to be on a jury, please don’t try to get out of it unless you have a really valid reason. Our country needs smart people on juries.</p>
<p>Good point about the size of juries, “12 Angry men” notwithstanding" (which by the way still gives a pretty good profile of what can happen on a jury), there often is a lot of stupidity on juries. What stinks is all you can do about a juror refusing to listen to instructions or deliberate is tell the judge you are hopelessly deadlocked and end up with a hung jury. My dad was on a jury case years ago, where a couple of guys were charged with rape, and the facts of the case made it pretty clear the girl had sex with the guy with the idea he would pay her, he reneged, and a friend of hers told her to basically cry rape. When they were deliberating, there was one person saying that the guy should be convicted, that even though it was consensual that in effect it was rape anyway… according to my dad, this one older woman basically gave the person holding out the 9th degree and they ended up acquitting.</p>
<p>The problem is that jurors often bring bias into the courtroom. I am pretty amazed at the jury on the Florida case, that they were able to acquit like that, with all the emotions and everything else revolving around this case, you would figure at least 1 or 2 would insist, as others have on another thread, that they believed she was guilty and to heck with the evidence and would hang the jury rather then acquit, even if they agreed there was no evidence.</p>
<p>I’m really discouraged. I am an employer, and I work full time in my business without a salary (I get what’s left at the end of the year.) Both myself and my manager have been called for jury duty in July. July (or August) are the only months that might actually work because we have extra college kids around. </p>
<p>But – my manager makes over 50% of my payroll budget on a weekly basis. If she is out for jury duty, I have to pay her normal salary – plus I have to cover for her responsibilities myself, which means my normal tasks don’t get done. I can hire one of the college kids (who make less money) to run the front, but they can’t do her whole job – they are good hard working kids, but they are not retail managers.</p>
<p>I still have to pay her for up to five days. I can’t count it towards vacation or sick time. I have to cover for her absence. And then I get to do the same thing the next week. I get to go to court, unpaid, and pay someone to cover my cashier hours, plus I can work nights and weekends to do the ordering, marketing, and the accounting etc.</p>
<p>I get the bit about civic duty and all – but this is a major hardship for a small business. I understand that I don’t have to pay her beyond the first week – but essentially my payroll is going to go up 150% for the week she is out, and then at least that much if I am then out.</p>
<p>She’s quite vocal about her civic duty (wonderful!) but she also understands that after the first five days she’s on her own with the state paying her the oh-so-generous $50 per day, which won’t cover gas, parking, and lunch.</p>
<p>cpn, you are in a very difficult position. Civic duty shouldn’t require people to have serious financial hardships. In fact our local paper recently had a story about this very thing - that judges understand small businesses suffer the most, and as a result there was a serious deficit in jurors. </p>
<p>I, like a lot of people, receive an annual salary. Since I don’t need the jury stipend, I wish I could donate it to a fund which could reimburse people like you and your manager.</p>
<p>cnp55:</p>
<p>At least in California I thought that jury duty pay by the employer was a benefit - not an entitlement. I thought the law was that the employer had to give the employee the time off with no reprisals but not that they actually have to pay them although most larger employers do pay them for a fixed period of time.</p>
<p>I could be wrong on this and it could be different in different states.</p>
<p>Edit - it looks like I was correct in the statement above (for California) -
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<p>As a small business with a limited number of employees it seems that it would make sense for you to not offer jury duty pay as a benefit. For the employee called to duty, if they state financial hardship because the employer doesn’t pay them they’d usually be excused (but it’s up to the court/judge).</p>
<p>I’m a reporter, and I’ve seen some egregious cases of jury malfeasance. The worst was a case I covered a half dozen years ago where the defendant was accused of four counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse against his live-in ex-girlfriend’s teenaged daughter. In a four-day trial, I thought the defense succeeded in poking some major holes in the prosecution’s case. I thought the alleged victim was evasive on the stand, she contradicted herself several times, and the defense caught her in one outright lie. There was no physical evidence, and the defense’s theory of the case - that the ex-gf had made up the story and involved her daughter to get revenge on the guy after he dumped her - made a certain amount of sense. The guy was a scumbag, but there was no way I could have concluded that the case was made beyond a reasonable doubt.</p>
<p>The jury went into its deliberations. I asked one of the prosecutors if I could talk to her about an unrelated matter I was writing a story about. She said sure and suggested we grab a sandwich in the cafeteria while we talked. We were standing in the cafeteria line when her cell phone went off - “Jury’s got a verdict.” I thought she was going to faint straight away.</p>
<p>They had deliberated 18 minutes and found the guy guilty on all four counts. He was sentenced to 38 years.</p>
<p>I talked to one of the jurors afterwards. He said the foreman asked, “Is there anybody who thinks this guy didn’t do it?” When nobody raised their hands, he said, “Okay, we’re done,” and they spent the rest of the 18 minutes filling out the jury forms. Never considered or discussed any of the evidence.</p>
<p>The guy’s had several rounds of appeals. He’s still in the slammer. He’ll get out when he’s 72.</p>
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<p>Not in CA, but the only time I actually made it into the jury box, it was for a case in which an obviously blue collar couple was suing an insurance company - something about an auto accident. There were two of us in the jury box wearing jackets and ties. Want to guess who were the first two people the plaintiff’s attorney dismissed?</p>
<p>annasdad, horrific story. I think those scenes are repeated all over the country every week.</p>
<p>But I’m sure the contrary is true too, that there are juries which deliberate carefully, thoughtfully, and with every attempt to fulfill the law. Your point is well taken about the foreman: so much depends on the one or two strong people in the jury room who influence the proceedings.</p>
<p>In Connecticut I am <em>required</em> to pay her for the first 5 days. Beyond that, it’s at my option, which I cannot afford to do. But mostly, I cannot afford to have her gone for a week or more (on top of vacation and sick days).</p>
<p>As a customer of a retail store, a locally owned independent, how would you feel if all of a sudden inventory and customer service are lacking because the manager was called to jury duty and the owner was doing two jobs and working 80 hrs a week at it?</p>
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<p>Absolutely. I watched the interview with the Blagojevich jury on TV the afternoon after they found him guilty on 17 of 20 counts. I was impressed with the intelligence of the jurors (those who spoke, at least) and how some of them said they had wrestled with the evidence, looking for ways to find him not guilty, but in the end deciding that the evidence was conclusive.</p>
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That’s lousy and just not right that a business owner should be saddled with paying for something that has nothing whatsoever to do with their business and that they have no control over. I guess someone in the government in your state and the people who voted for those people think you have the deep pockets and should pay for this.</p>
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<p>How would you feel if you or a loved one were on trial for something very serious and the jurors couldn’t wait to rush through the deliberations because they couldn’t afford to lose time from work or were distracted worrying about how ****ed their boss was that they were selected for jury duty?</p>
<p>I’ve been called for jury duty 3 times … twice I never made it out of the holding pen (I was released without being assigned to a specific case) … however the last time I was called into a court room for a trial.</p>
<p>This was in Mass and we did not know anything about the case before we were called into the room but two things happened that certainly gave pretty good clues. First, we had to fill out a questionnaire … and then by juror number we were interviewed by the defense lawyer and the prosecutor.</p>
<p>I was quite impressed with the process and the judge, defense lawyer, prosecutor, and the prospective jurors … everyone seemed to be quite determined to sit a fair jury. That said the questinnaire and questions sure seemed to indicate what the trial was about (I never found out as the defense lawyer had me excused from the pool when I was interviewed). The questions were like these (these are not quite right but you get the idea) …</p>
<ul>
<li>Are you related to a police officer?</li>
<li>Do you believe police officers should always be believed? </li>
<li>Do you believe women’s behavior or dress can invite sexual abuse?</li>
<li>Do you work for an organization serving abused women such a women’s shelter or a rape crisis center</li>
<li>Etc</li>
</ul>
<p>Anyone want to guess what the trial was about?</p>
<p>So Cartera, what are you saying? I should simply send her off without a care? It’s not a great system. By saying that no one gets a free pass, small companies such as mine are put at risk. And people with real economic concerns are required to put themselves at risk as well. </p>
<p>In my experience, the customers don’t really care <em>why</em> their dog food or their bunny hay or whatever isn’t on the shelf. They are not going to cut me a break because a key employee is sitting on a jury. </p>
<p>I’ve spent years building up my clientele, but they are likely to just go up the street and spend their money there. That’s why this is so damaging to me. I don’t have another employee with that level of expertise in retail management – so to operate my business at the level my customers expect, I will have to do her job and my job. I will personally lose my weekends, my days off, and my evenings to cover her work and my work. And I have to pay her. And then I am on the hook for the next week. And so then, I get to do jury duty <em>and</em> work nights and weekends to get my portion of the job done. And I won’t get paid by the state at all.</p>
<p>That’s why the State should compensate the jurors at a realistic level ($50/day does not cut it) and not expect them, or their employer, to simply volunteer their services which is what it comes down to. And while I will fully acknowledge that it’s the duty of every citizen to serve jury duty, I am just aghast that I am potentially losing her for a week that I have to pay for and make up her time, and then I have to go too.</p>
<p>If I have to pay an extra week’s salary for an employee, maybe I should be able to pick the employee I want to send off for jury duty? I’ve got one darling they can have!</p>
<p>I’m saying that there are sacrifices for the system that most of us believe is one of the best in the world. We sacrifice in order to have a military to protect us. Employers sacrifice when their employees are in the National Guard. The jury system is just as important and just as much a part of our fabric. Perhaps we should do away with the juries of our peers thing and have professional juries. How often does this really affect your business? </p>
<p>I’m fine with the state paying jurors and it seems that is what you support. I assume you are okay with the tax increase that it would take to do it.</p>
<p>So cnp who do you think should take the risk instead of you? The self-employed pool cleaner? How about the stay at home mom with three kids? How about the the first grade teacher? Or the marine just back from Afganistan? Or the sole employee of a small non-profit organization? Everyone of these people were on the jury I just served on – a week long trial. It was a hardship for everyone of us – and a hardship for our employers as well. But we did it. There were some people dismissed during voir dire for very practical reasons, but for the most part everyone was making a sacrifice in time, money and inconvience, but we did it.</p>
<p>Well, not to put too fine a point on it, my personal sacrifice will be working two 80 hour weeks back to back (double my normal hours, without compensation) mid-summer when I normally get a little extra time off, and an extra $1500-$2000 in payroll. </p>
<p>I’m not arguing with the theory of jury duty – just making the point that it’s a pretty big deal for a small business.</p>
<p>The point is that it is a pretty big deal for all of us. In the case of the Marine, he got his jury notice the day he got home from Afghanistan. He was scheduled for six weeks at home and then he was going back into training to prepare to go back sometime in the next six months. He spent one week of the six weeks he had with his family doing jury duty. When the judge asked him if he wanted to be dismissed he said that he figured this was one of the things he was fighting for – the right to sit on a jury.</p>