I know that Jury Duty is mandatory in both nations (USA all 50 states / Canada all 13 provinces) meaning citizens have to show up in person when they receive the “dreaded letter” via the mail telling them the date / time and court in which they have to attend, excusals exist if you manage to plead your reasoning for excusal with evidence.
I mean, have you received a summons from the court saying you’ve been chosen as a juror? There are penalities on failing to attend. If you were selected on being part of the jury, what is the experience like and how much are you paid? If you weren’t selected on being part of the jury that time, is there a chance you can be summoned again at any given moment?
Neurodivergent people (i.e. Autism, ADHD, dyslexia) who have received the summons can plead their reasoning as to why they aren’t eligible to be a juror only if they have medical evidence (diagnosis of their condition, psych report, doctors letter, medical certificate) explaining why their condition makes them unable to serve & etc.
I have been summoned many times and have never sat on a Jury.
Don’t try to get out of it. It’s the most power you will ever get as a single citizen in the US. You can make the difference in someone else’s life, and it may be a matter of life and death based on a law that you don’t even think should exist. If you ever have a trial by jury, you don’t want to be judged by a group of people who couldn’t think of a good-enough excuse to get out of it, you want smart people who will potentially put their foot in the door between you and unjust laws.
Read up on jury nullification. Try to get on a jury. Don’t tell them anything they don’t ask directly. Dress like anything but who they think they don’t want on their jury during the voir dire process.
I was summoned once, but no juries were selected that day. My younger brother was the foreperson of a grand jury.
I’ve been summoned twice in the past 7 years and neither time did I actually even get to the point where they interview to decide if I would have been a juror.
First time I got summons was like a month after I moved to a different city for work and I let them know and they said okay you don’t need to come.
Second was like last year and I accepted the summons but then got a notification that I was no longer needed as the trial wouldn’t happen. I assume plea deal or something.
Was summoned once, and ended up on the jury. It was a really sad case where the cops were trying to put an 80-something year old former convict back in prison, because his son in law had a gun in the house (that they searched because of something the son in law did, but no charges were brought against him), and that was a violation of the 80-year-old’s release conditions from like 40 years ago.
I really wanted to end up on the jury in order to keep this guy out of prison, which luckily we did. The defense was very smart in making his case sympathetic, even though legally the guy had no leg to stand on. There were a few jurors that wanted to imprison him, but we finally got them to go with the majority to ignore the law and keep him out of prison.
The easy rule of thumb if you do/don’t want to be on the jury: the less you talk, the more likely you are to end up on the jury. The more annoying you are, especially talking about how busy you are, or asking a lot of pointless questions: the less likely you are to end up on the jury.
Not yet, but everyone I know that were summoned, total 3 instances, never actually served.
I served on Grand Jury in NY state. 2 days a week for 8 weeks, listened to the evidence and decided if there was enough to charge/not charge. Really interesting experience.
I’m 47, I’ve been summoned twice, but never selected to actually serve.
I once got summoned while I was in the hospital being treated for Leukemia. They gave me an exemption and some get well wishes.
I’ve been selected three times for jury duty. Two were county and one was federal. As far as pay went, county payed awful, it was less than minimum wage. Federal paid a bit better, and I got mileage to the courthouse, I also had to front the parking cost and be reimbursed later.
The first time I was on a criminal trial for rape of a mentally handicapped woman, I was kicked off that jury during selection. The second time I had to go in one day, but all the cases for the day ended up settling, so they sent us back home. The third time was a civil case for a prisoner who had his stuff destroyed by one of the guards, I was part of the jury and we couldn’t reach a verdict because some people couldn’t believe a guard would just do bad things.
we couldn’t reach a verdict because some people couldn’t believe a guard would just do bad things.
That’s wild.
Was the guard human? Yes? Then they are capable. Look at the evidence!
No, no. It is a long established scientific fact that once you take a 6 week criminal justice course at the community college and put on that badge, you’re physically incapable of doing wrong.
To be fair there wasn’t really any evidence. The guard claimed it was a contraband search for a hat the inmate was wearing, but the guard followed the guy back to his cell from a separate building and never actually found the contraband. The guard claimed the inmate destroyed everything after the search. There weren’t any witnesses, and any camera footage that could have proved anything was not retained by the prison.
It’s clear to anyone that remotely understands how prisoners are treated that this was clearly a guard abusing their power, but privileged white women don’t have to face that reality.
Ive been summoned a few times but only picked once for a single day trial. I showed up at 8am and drank shitty coffee and ate snacks while watching HGTV on a big screen in the jury room. About 2 or 3 hours later the judge came in to tell us that the defendent had taken a plea deal, so we could go home. I got a check for $12 some weeks later and don’t have to serve again for a year or two.
All in all not too bad, and my work paid me my full wage for the day for doing my civic duty.
The summons prior to that was for a grand jury, which I didnt realize at the time and also got the dates mixed up so I didnt actually show up. I really lucked out here because for the grand jury, you have to serve for two weeks straight. When I realized I had the days wrong I was able to call and get it sorted out which lead to the above summons in which I was called, but according to the law, I technically could have been thrown in jail over missing the summons.
No, I don’t live in either of those countries, so have never been called up there.
Thank you for your contribution!
I’ve served on two juries.
The first was for a traffic accident. The parties involved had already decided on the amount of money that was involved, we just had to decide the percentage of fault of each party.
The second was a criminal case in which two people broke into a restaurant and held employees prisoner to rob the restaurant. They were convicted.
I’ve been summoned twice since. The first time I went in and was excused. The second time I was told I didn’t have to appear the night before.
Here in my county you have to fill out and submit a questionnaire. One of the questions is whether you can give a police officers testimony the same weight as any other person.
My response recently has been that I would believe a police officer less than any other person. My reasoning being that anyone who has been paying attention to current events and doesn’t believe that all cops lie would be too stupid to serve on a jury.
I don’t mind serving on a jury, but it’s looking like answering the questions honestly means I won’t be selected again.
I’ve been summoned once, picked never. Waited around for a few hours just to do nothing and get a small compensation check.
Where I live, you don’t get any compensation whatsoever unless you have to spend more than like 5 days or something, and it only kicks in for time spent after that point.
Been selected many times, but they don’t like engineers on juries.
Yeah I’ve been summoned a bunch of times (California). You get that at most 1x per year and usually you’re not needed (you’re excused over the phone, or you go to the courthouse and wait around most of the day before getting sent home). If you’re sent from the waiting room to an actual courtroom, you’re there with 50 or so other people who get called up and questioned (“voir dire”) one by one til they have selected 12 jurors and 4 alternates. Anyone left over is sent home. Once I made it all the way into the questioning phase but then got excused. I haven’t yet actually been on a jury. Anyway it’s time consuming but not that hard. There’s a small payment for those who need it. It’s nowhere near minimum wage.
