About jury duty, have you ever been called upon???

Babs,
...Should serving as an alternate count?....... Also, the responses in this thread let me know that I'm not as rare as I thought I was; being a person who wanted to serve and not getting the chance. This leads me to wonder; what if there was a question on the original form, of willingness to serve. Then they could pick jurors from this pool first. Feasible,... or no?

Booman, "willingness to serve" shows a premediatated conviction and the principle of jury pool selection is randomness; therefore, skewing the sample. I do acknowledge that may of the attributes already used (such as voter roles) skew the sample anyway. I'm not the political scientist, only the messenger - please don't shoot me!

Asherman

I've just been browsing through your gallery of paintings and drawings.....They are beautiful! Thanks for sharing them with us.

jjorge

BillW,
...I wanted feedback, but deep inside I sort of concur. It's like the, probability the military pool was weakened by the elimination of the draft. I say sorta', because I don't believe being willing to serve tilts a person in any direction. However, I did indicate 2 pools. just as I would favor that in the military. That way, if you start scraping, in the volunteer pool, you can tap the, "kicking and screaming" pool.

An attribute isn't necessarily good or bad, whatever that means - it just skews the randomness. However, that said, a lot of the jury pools are picked for voter registration. This alone shows willingness of some sort and is definitely an attribute.

OJ's trial wasn't held in the affluent Brentwood district where he would have gotten a much "fairer" trial. It was put in the downtown district where Cocran knew he stood a chance. Why do Republicans get all trials in the DC Federal Courts - they have been able to pack these courts for years.

BTW, a Huston Judge got irritated that he couldn't get a full jury pool, so he went out on the street and selection pool based solely on the few questions he was allowed to ask. So it goes!

I know I shouldn't have been offended Jespah, but it was embarrassing. I think the thing that bothered me the most was that I lost a days pay for nothing. I guess I just need to find a better way to look at it.

WHAT!...TheOJ trial wasn't fair?

Yes, the smog is much, much worse downtown - didn't you know?

Booman, do you think the DC political trials are fair?

Good golly, Joanne - it isn't as if it is
all over, I think we all have a good
many years ahead of us - you never
know, you MAY yet be selected for duty
& get an interesting trial also. We still
have quite a few years to go, right? :wink:

Since arriving in this country 8 years ago, I have received jury summonses 18 times! Since I'm not yet a U.S. citizen, I cannot serve, but they keep on coming! I have called and explained over and over again and they tell me that it is not the voting register they use but the tax returns, so there you go!

In Ireland, I was on a jury for two separate cases and real exciting they were too!!

#1 A young man who burglarized a house - lasted one day. There was no real evidence and the girls whose house it was acted like a pair of idiots and revealed they had a grudge against the accused so we found "not guilty".

#2 A young man (and I use that term loosely) who stole a horse (yes, a horse!). Remember we're talking Ireland - it wasn't unusual for a city-lad to drive into the country with his pals and steal a horse out of a field, then ride it back to the city and give all his friends a ride for a few shillings each. Anyway it was easy to convict since everyone, and by that I mean his "friends", admitted to him stealing the horse.
Anyways, this was a dozen years ago when things were a little less lawyerly in Dublin, and the judge granted our request to impose punishment on the "young man". We sentenced him to three months of volunteer work for the farmer, cleaning out the stables and shovelling the horse-****. Better than a fine!

Heeven, and better for the young man also (I hope).

I'm sure he hated it but we thought it was very appropriate and would make him think twice in the future.

Plus I admit to an evil picture forming in my mind of him shovelling on his weekends getting ribbed by his mates in the pub later!

Wow this is getting more interesting by the minute!!
An immigrant gets called innumerable times even
though he is not a naturalized citizen yet - based
on income tax returns??? How odd. Geez, Booman
there is just no rhyme or reason why you have yet to
be called upon to serve on a jury.
*Based on a willingness to serve - would be the
worst of all things....almost as bad as having
professional jurors... people who do it for the fun
of it, or the excitement, or the feeling of control
over another human beings life, or they are criminals
themselves who have not been caught yet & have their
very own little concept of "justice"that could be quite
odd and/or dangerous, after all. There are many
possible reasons why "willingness to serve" could
spell BIG TROUBLE!
*Thanks C.I. for sharing your jury story with us again.
I have never met another person who has been
involved in such a "big deal" of a trial like murder and
rape. Mine was only an arson case, and no one was
harmed.
*Gezzy - any intelligent lawyer has to know certain
characteristic attributes about people & they hone their skills
on this daily - example, a female within a certain income range,
at a certain age, with or without kids, married, or unmarried,
all factors would be considered in their choice of - is she going
to make the 1 juror who kills our case, or could this be the
one juror who clinches our case. It has little to do with will
the individual makes a good juror, or a bad juror. It is just
stuff based on what the lawyer sees as being good for HIS
side of the case. I would bet that in the murder/rape case
C.I. was a jurist in...the lawyers avoided young female
jurors like the plague. And they have so much statistical
crap figured out that they really do make the most of their
choices to keep or to kick off a juror. It actually has zilch
to do with you - it all has to do with the lawyer wanting to
WIN THE CASE - no matter what.

Babs, You are right on that point that our jury did not have any young woman on it. We can assume they will be hell-bent in finding the defendant guilty even with less circumstantial evidence - would be my presumption. c.i.

You know, that is strange, now that you mention it. I'm 52 years of age, and i've never once been called for jury duty . . .

Well, it's cuz you don't vote or pay your taxes, jefe...

Oh yeah . . . there is that . . .

When I lived in L.A., a flurry of summonses. Everywhere else, nada. Proof, as if any were needed, that L.A. is a hotbed of bad, bad people doing bad, bad things.

pd, members of the FBDOTW (Future Benevolent-Dictators-of-the-World) are exempt, ya know.

Patiodog and Setana...nice routine..

Babs let me clarify; I have been called several times,, I just miss the cut usually. I have been called a few times in the last four years, but I am hampered by paralysis, and living in a building with no elevator. This will probably be overcome someday
...As for that professional juror thing; I did sit through one trial as an alternate, and it wasn't like "Law 'N Order". Every questioning, cross-examination, and summation, took an hour or two. We all fought to stay awoke, and we were interested! In other words, I would certainly have my curiosity, and sense of civic duty, fulfilled after one trial.