How to get out of Jury Duty

[CyberGuy]

This last Thursday I had Jury Duty. We were assigned to a criminal case about some sort of illegal dumping of hazardous wastes.

There were some witnesses and some of the evidence was circumstantial we were told.

Defense lawyer were asking potential jury people if they could accept the fact that a man was innocent until proven guilty. If the fact a man was charged with a crime does not mean he is guilty of the crime.

Prosecutor was asking this question.

If a man was convicted of going 76 MPH in a 75 MPH zone and the facts said he was guilty would you convict the man.

I was not one of the original 12 jury people. But as the prosecutor and defense attorneys threw out jury people I was called to stand as Jury #7.

Here is how it went.

Defense asked me questions and had no problem with me.

Prosecutor came up and asked me the questions.

Here is how it went. I will use CyberGuy as my name here instead of my real name.

Prosecutor. Good Afternoon CyberGuy.

CyberGuy. Good afternoon.

Prosecutor. You heard my question on the man going 76 MPH in a 75 MPH zone. if the man was guilty would you convict the man.

CyberGuy. That depends.

Prosecutor. Depends on what?

CyberGuy. If the penalty was just a fine then yes I could convict but if the fine as 1 year in jail No I would not convict.

Prosecutor. You realize that the penalty faze would be up to the judge. That he may not go to jail but just get probation.

CyberGuy. If I knew that the penalty faze could be jail and I felt the law was stupid and unfair I could not in good conscience vote to convict a man of a law I felt was stupid and unfair.

Prosector. The jury just decides if the man was guilty of breaking the law not to decide the penalty.

CyberGuy. Yes I know that but I would not vote to possibly send a man to jail for going 76 MPH in a 75 MPH zone in this hypothetical situation. Even if I do not decide the penalty I would have to live with that and I could not. So I would not vote Guilty in that case.

Prosecutor. Ok. The people would like to thank jury # 7 CyberGuy and ask him to step down.

I then left hardly able to keep from grinning.

=======================================

Here is my reasoning. According to Stats 1 out of ever 100 americans are behind bars now. By 2030 if trends continue we will have 1 in 20 behind bars. Our laws are getting more and more totalitarian in nature every year.

Our State and Federal legislators are taking the penalty discression away from the judges and giving sentencing guidelines saying that a judge has to give a sentence of lets say 5 to 20 years for Crime A and not leave it up to the judge. Because of this we are having many laws that are unfair or excessive in their punishment.

For instance my brother in law was thrown in prison for five years for a situation that was a crime for doctor to do but if a lawyer or dentist did the same thing it would be legal. He basically hired a Hospital CEO to drum up business for him. Prices he got was not excessive for the hospital business but he was charged with under the RICO act which was totally bogus.

Anyway that was one case. While in prison he met this one guy who got 8 years in prison. He was an electrician. He wired a hot house that was being used for growing Marijuana . He was charged with not reporting the act that Marijuana was being grown and aiding and abetting the crime by wiring the hot house which was growing Marijuana.

The man thought he was hired to do a job and it was not his business to be a busybody. He got 8 years for that.

I would have voted to aquit this guy. This law was stupid. They can write laws to make just about anything a crime and we as jury people can only vote if the man was guilty of breaking the law and nothing else. The result is a who slew of totalitarian laws with oppressive penalties.

Anyway with those views no prosecutor will have me on the jury. That is fine with me.

[Nan]

There are a number of ways to get out of jury duty here which do not involve actually stepping up to the plate, as it were. I am sure you have the same categories in the US - certain groups are barred from jury duty and others may choose not to serve. The first group includes jail inmates and inmates of mental health facilities. I was fascinated to learn that the second group includes dead people - at least it did on a form I kept on getting telling me to report. So the deceased were not compelled to report for jury duty but could do so if desired. Perhaps the form has been altered now, I hope so. All sorts of comments spring to mind

And CG you answered according to your conscience and got the outcome you obviously desired, so I guess, congratulations!

[CyberGuy]

We have the same requirements here. One of the things that can keep you from jury service is if you were convicted of a felony and have not yet had your rights of a citizen reestablished.

One Guy came up to the secretary and told her he was a felon on parole and she told him to come to her office and she would take care of the paper work for dismissal. They would check on his story of course. So yes no Felons are allowed on a jury.

[Liz]

Neither are blind people. My husband got summoned, and I took him up to the courthouse. They dismissed him as soon as they saw his white cane; and they told me the steps to take to get him permanently removed from the jury pool.

[puddles]

I just got called up for Jury Duty here where I live. I must keep Cyberguy's reasoning in the back of my mind, you never know when it may come in handy!

[Amelia]

We can also get out of jury duty if it poses an undue hardship. For me it's an undue hardship because the compensation doesn't cover what I would lose in wages. Or if you are a single mother with no ability to pay for a sitter. Any number of scenarios cover the undue hardship. Also you can get out for medical reasons. Most of the time you get out of duty over the phone and you don't have to show up at the courthouse. I have already served 3 times. I hope it's a long time before I'm called again.

[Nan]

I get out of it because of my work.

I am sure each country has similar laws. I was just rather bemused by the way the dead were classified as exempt in the forms I received.

[Amelia]

Maybe they just want to cover the possibility of dead undead. teehe

[cricket]

So the jurors chosen were likely to be ones who would have upheld the law and given the judgment according to the ways the laws are written.

Which way would a Christian be of better service to his fellow man--to escape jury duty, or to take it and serve according to His will?

[Amelia]

I have taken all three of my past jury calls. And I served to the best of my ability. Except once when I told the judge that I thought the suit was stupid and a waste of time and money. teehe I didn't sit on that jury.

I have never sat on a murder trial. So I have never had to judge someone in a possible life or death sentence. The worst I have sat on was a rape and that trial/deliberation went on for the whole term of my duty. Most of the rest was stuff I felt should not have gotten so far as a trial. But what do I know. LOL

[Denise]

I have never been called on Jury Duty...and I am always hearing other people called to Jury Duty, and sometimes more than once...they must of forgotten about me teehe

[CyberGuy]

Quote:

Which way would a Christian be of better service to his fellow man--to escape jury duty, or to take it and serve according to His will?

I was perfectly willing to serve but I would not be bound by just a guilty or innocent of breaking a law. If I felt a law was unjust in the first place I would say NOT GUILTY.

Remember 150 years ago it was illegal to harbor a runaway slave. You had to report anyone that looked like he or she was a runaway slave. You got $10 if the slave was caught and you reported it. That would equal about $1000 in todays money value.

Now if that was the law would you convict someone who aided runaway slaves?

Same principle. Our laws are getting oppressive with long prison sentences for relative minor offenses.

My uncle who is a dentist in the california womens prison system says he is told he had to just pull a tooth rather than fill a cavity as they do not want to take the time to fix teeth.

The result was a lawsuit filed and the federal courts has ruled California has 30 days to come up with a solution for proper medical care and to lessen the overcrowded prisons or the federal courts will order the release of a certain amount of prisoners.

Now California has to decide who is going to be released as the people do not want to spend more money on more prisons.

[Jeannieb43]

But if every able-bodied citizen always got excused from jury duty, how would the poor litigants ever have their cases decided? I hate to think of having only unemployed, Welfare mothers or retired people sitting as jurors. We need to have active, working people who are out there in the "real world" deciding the court cases.

In California the jury pool is drawn from driver's license lists and voter lists. So if you never vote, or if you don't have a driver's license, you may never be called. But hopefully this method ensures a wide cross-section of the populace. Because litigants are entitled to be judged by "a jury of their peers."

[Nan]

I agree in principle Jeannie - and I am also grateful that I do not have to serve because of my occupation. Sometimes our feelings and attitudes do not agree.

I am not sure if the electoral roll is the basis of calling people to jury duty in this country, but voting is compulsory so I guess that would mean fewer would slip through the net.

[Jeannieb43]

When I've been called to jury duty on a criminal case, I always ask whether this is a death penalty case, and if so I respectfully decline to serve. But that doesn't come till after I've sat through all the voir dire and the questioning comes to me.

This doesn't mean I don't agree with the death penalty in general, to be used in the appropriate circumstances. But it means I personally couldn't be the one to vote to invoke it. There are too many cases of mistaken identity among the criminals out there.

Suffice it to say, I've never been on a jury all the way through to verdict, though I've sat through many days of voir dire questioning as a member of jury "pools" --and once when I was selected for a jury, that case settled just prior to their calling their first witness.

The benefit of having a jury is sometimes in the impression it makes upon the defendant. He looks at those intelligent faces and realizes he'd better accept a plea bargain, because he'll never be able to "bamboozle" all those smart jurors.

[Nan]

The benefit of having a jury is sometimes in the impression it makes upon the defendant. He looks at those intelligent faces and realizes he'd better accept a plea bargain, because he'll never be able to "bamboozle" all those smart jurors.

And I had been told another way to get out of jury duty was to appear too intelligent......

[Planey]

And I had been told another way to get out of jury duty was to appear too intelligent......

This, unfortunately, is not a method available to me...

[Jeannieb43]

Methinks you doth protest too much.

[Nan]

No Planey we will not believe that one.

[CyberGuy]

I would not knock the notion that prosecutors do not like educated people. They tend to throw out anyone who they think will think for themselves rather than be spoonfeed their version of the truth.

Several years ago when my brother in law was sent to jail on a trumped up charge I told the judge I think all prosectors are liars and will not believe anything a prosecutor had to say. I was the first one the prosector dismissed.

[bustedknuckle]

I agree with cyberguy our laws are becoming oppressive and our government is becoming overbearing.

[Nan]

If you fail to get out of jury duty, there are other options available:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/06/10/1212863636766.html

Aborting this trial will cost the State taxpayers about $1 million, and after 66 days they were almost to the summing up addresses.

I do not think the judge was amused, but apparently there is no legal penalty for what they did.

[CyberGuy]

I did serve on one jury though. It was a civil case. It was an unlawful termination case. A older accountant who was two years from retirement was fired because he refused to learn Excel and word. He felt he was doing his job just fine by hand and had done so for years and since he had only two years left to retirement why should he learn something he would not use in retirement.

The employer fired him.

The trial was supposed to take five days. After a day and a half of deliberations by the mans lawyers we can back from lunch and both teams of lawyers were standing talking in the lobby. We could look down at them form the upper story outside the court room. For an hour they kept us outside and then the lawyers when in to see the judge. They called us in and announced they had settled out of court. As is the custom they would not tell us the settlement but the lawyers did question us about how we felt about the case. Since we had only heard one side we could not answer that very well.

Anyway that was ten years ago. I have not gotten on a case since.

[Jeannieb43]

Re: your case, CyberGuy, I imagine once the defendants [employer] started hearing the plaintiff's testimony there in open court, they decided to take their attorney's advice and offer a substantial cash settlement, rather than risk a jury award of a really huge dollar amount against them. And the plaintiff accepted the settlement offer [because he's a reasonable guy who'd rather have a bundle of cash and be able to quit work altogether than to continue working another two years for that unreasonable employer].

Settlements on the courthouse steps are common. Sometimes the parties just don't seem to "get it" until they're actually in court. Then the truth of the facts begins to dawn on them, and they realize they could receive a BIG financial blow if they leave it in the hands of the judge or the jury. So, in their last-ditch effort taking their future into their own hands, they finally make a reasonable cash offer.

But you did your part by being on the jury, by providing an intelligent "face" to the legal system. Everybody wins, that way.

[CyberGuy]

I was confused as to why they kept me on as a jury. Both sides knew I was a computer programmer. I thought the defense would throw me off as I am a technical person who loves tinkering with new software.

I asked them why they kept me on.

The company wanted me on because I was a computer programmer and would know the importance of keeping up to date with new software.

The plaintiff wanted me on because I was not in management but an employee and they wanted me because I would be sympathetic to the small guy under the employer.

I could tell the companies lawyers were studying us the jury faces as the plaintiff was giving his testimony. I was watching their faces. I could tell they were concerned with how we seemed to be sympathetic to the plaintiff's story.

So yes I was not that surprised they settled quickly.