Jury Duty

Status
Not open for further replies.
Ben89 said:
i received a letter once to appear and dumped that shit in the trash ;]
Click to expand...

May not be the best tactic.

A school teacher I know tells the following story. A few years back the federal marshals showed up and took a teacher out in handcuffs.

The offense? Contempt of court for blowing off jury duty.
 


Holy, 10% is low. I thought it was kind of socially accepted that you show up, but you tell people you're gay, racist, and have a 17th nipple.
 
I went once.
As many glasses premium OJ and TimTams as I wanted (the clerk was "There's the fridge. It's got orange juice and biscuits. Please don't abuse it"... I was wishing I'd brought sandwich bags), and I got to sit and sketch people for most of the day.
Got called for the pool from one case which was about libel of all things. Didn't get selected for being a journalism student at the time (and I assume actually understanding the law as such)
 
I was called for jury duty once, problem was I was in the middle east, my mom called them and told them where I was and they took me off the list.
 
Ben89 said:
i received a letter once to appear and dumped that shit in the trash ;]
Click to expand...

Generally it is not a good idea to piss off judges and prosecutors. They might not come and get you, rather they will wait till you come to them.

You may receive another letter one day telling you that a long-lost relative has died and you are named in the will to receive a portion of the estate. They will want you to come to a certain building on a certain day at a certain time for the reading of the will. If you show up, they will put you on a bus with all the other people dumb enough to fall for that trick. You might even get your mug on the local news that evening.

Another thing to be prepared for is if you get arrested and charged, they may make it harder than usual for you to make bail; since you would be charged with contempt of court, the prosecutor has a pretty good argument against your willingness to abide by the rules of the court.

You may have to sit in the drunk tank for a few days before you can get a disposition, but after that, it's probably gonna be like a $100 fine plus court costs and unless you really piss them off, they will likely throw out the case after you drop off the cash.
 
i had to come back again today cause they didnt go through the selection process yesterday....some guy tried the 'i hate this and that blah blah' and they picked him.. i guess they called his bluff
 
If you don't want to serve, make clear you are an activist juror who is informed and will judge the law and the facts of the case.

Not only is it honest, it scares the shit out of the establishment that people know the law, and aren't just going to sit on the juror like a monkey in a cage.
 
well... i didnt end up getting called at all for the juror interview..and i got the certificate of completion so i guess im off the hook for the next 6 years...
 
The one time I was voir dired (sp?) I was asked something like - "how will you treat the testamony of the police officers?"

I answered, truthfully, that I would give it no more weight than anybody else. I was asked to explain. "Well when you consider the case of the state troopers last year who planted evidence to make conv...". You never saw a procecutor shoot up faster! Seems I was about to 'polute the entire jury pool' hahaha. I was excused.

Thing is, one of the dumb ass state troopers told the FBI, on a job interview, about planting the evidence as something that would enhance his candidancy! Ended up reversing about 10 or 20 convictions and sent a bunch of his buddies to jail. It was a tremendous scandal and was covered in all the papers and tv news. Why was it that I was saying anything that they all should have known about.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom