It will be my first time...what should I expect...I hope I don't have to look a murderer in the eyes. How long will it take?
[Edited 4/22/06 11:43am]

my stepmom got called for jury duty and you would have thought that some one had told her that she was going to have to give up her right eye or something. i've never been called but i don't think that it's all that horrible. bring a book and hopefully you'll get pardoned.

Where an "I hate people" t-shirt and believe me, they will get you out of jury duty mighty fast.

2freaky4church1 said:

JasmineFire said:

you never been called? cool...thanks

unlucky7 said:

i think it's because my parents were lawyers in the city where I am considered a resident.

I did it for a full week and we judged two cases...

The first case was a podgy slightly simple-looking girl whom had been accused of stealing from the Post Office where she worked, to buy a second-hand wedding dress from a charity shop. I felt sorry for her. The evidence was really flimsy. Everybody seemed to have keys to all the drawers with money inside - even the cleaners!

The second case was a meat-head bouncer from Wigan whom had apparently bashed up another meat-head bouncer in a club. They had some kind of long-running beef with each other. He was kind of good-looking in a thuggish sort of way. I couldn't believe it went to court... The alleged victim didn't even have to go to hospital after the attack. The victim's sister was proper white-trash and was a comedy-sensation... You could tell that she was trying to be demure with her buttoned-up black cardigan, black skirt and white blouse but her "chewing gum voice" gave her away. The defendant's lawyer asked her to read from her statement and she gazed at the judge blankly when she reached the part which read, "...and then I shouted at him"... She bit her lip and asked the judge, "Ooh... Am i allowed to say these words in court". The judge was like, "Yes, my dear. Carry on. I'm sure we've heard it all before." In her best "reading voice" she enunciated something along the lines of "...and then I said, 'Kill the motherfucking cunt! Twat the fucker out!'"



We reached "Not Guilty" verdicts in both cases.

The whole process worried me somewhat because the I.Q. of some of the people in that jury room was less than zero. I find it shocking that you have to take intelligence tests just to get a job flipping burgers, but when somebody's fate rests in the balance, they'll let any old weirdo have an opinion. Late on the Friday afternoon, one of the jurors actually said that we should just hurry up and find the defendant guilty because he had to go to a wedding reception that weekend and didn't want to be late for it!!!

Oh - and at one point during the week, a 66 year-old female juror banged her fists on the table and screamed at me "Will you shut the fuck up!" I just burst out laughing nervously.

It was a great experience.

^^^that's interesting Justin , but do they tell you not to tell what happened in court?

unlucky7 said:

You're only not allowed to talk about it whilst the case is in progress. After that, you can just blab to everybody if you want.

take something to read, play(cd/dvd player), cause u will be bored until they call your name to goto the court room. i work in one here in milwaukee.

SIRTONY said:

Oh yeah... You can wait a day or two before you actually get to go into court. Take plenty of spare change for coffee vending machines too.

Some courts let you choose if you want to sit in criminal or civil. In my area they did. If you get stuck in criminal there are ways to get kicked out on purpose. Trust me, some times you do not want to be on some of them. During Vadeir or however the mess is spelled, they will ask you questions like, are you or anyone in your family in law enforcement? This means the case will probably be wicked and the defense will normally kick out these types. (Like me out of the pool! ) Or say stuff like I believe in tbe death penalty. I normally raise my hand on just about all of the questions. In civil cases I just say the defendant looks familiar or I had a similar case happen to me. I usually enjoy jury duty meeting the different folks!

I should also add that I made money by doing jury service!

I asked a manager at work (not my own) to sign the expenses document which the court had posted to me. Now, I should have given a copy to my Human Resources department and told them of my enforced absence but I instead booked a holiday through my own slightly dim manager. I got my regular monthly salary from work, plus a cheque from the court, equivalent to a week's wage!

The loss of five days' holiday was no great hardship because I get 38 days off work, a year.