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posted by martyb on Sunday August 21 2016, @10:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the government-of,-by,-and-for-the-people-on-its-deathbed dept.

I've previously mentioned federal whistleblower Peter Van Buren here and his expose on working for minimum wage at a store he called "Bullseye" while his lawsuit wound its way through the court system.
He has now blogged about a part of government which, apparently, hasn't had any new ideas since 1856.

I just wrapped up a couple of days of jury duty.

Note "jury duty", which is very different than serving on a jury. I didn't do that. Being on an actual jury involves making a careful judgment on someone's life. I did jury duty, which involves waiting and sitting and waiting, while watching your last hopeful images of democracy fade away.

[...] It was about 10:30 before a guy who said he'd been doing this exact same job for 34 years began speaking to us as if we were slow children or fairly smart puppies. The bulk of his explanation was about how most of us would get our $40 a day jury payment, and the many exceptions to that. It was then lunch.

[After lunch, we waited for the rest of the day but] were unneeded. We were dismissed until re-summoned tomorrow morning.

[...] The next morning, [...] I got called to jury selection, along with about 20 [others who had been waiting in the same semi-air-conditioned room]. We were brought to an unventilated hallway to wait for 30 minutes before entering an actual courtroom. [...] We did an olde timey swearing in, and then were invited to visit the judge and explain any "issues" we might have that would prevent us from serving on a jury.

It was pathetic. Nearly everyone bitched, whined, begged, and complained that they could not do it.

[...] I got bounced out of the jury selection in the next phase. Both the prosecutor and the defense attorney asked us questions about our jobs, our thoughts on law enforcement (especially if we trusted police to testify honestly), and the like. I answered every question completely candidly and was thrown back to wait three more hours until "jury duty" was over. The only way I could have served would have been to lie.

[...] This system is a mess. [...] The 19th century notion that everyone simply must find a way to put their life on hold does not work. [...] Telling single parents to just figure out child care, Wall Street brokers to just not care about millions of dollars, students to just miss class, and people who work freelance or hourly to just suck it up and lose their already limited income is not 2016.

If assigned to an actual jury, you stay with the trial until it is done. [...] If you pull a murder case or one of the many medical malpractice suits, it could be a month+. [...] For $40 a day [...]--minus the minimum five dollars [that] commuting to court and back costs, means you are getting about half the minimum wage in New York, and even that takes six to eight weeks to be sent to you. [...] If you are already living on the margins, you cannot afford to serve on a jury.

[...] A lot of folks whose English was poor or who sounded as if they did not get much of an education had no excuse the judge would accept [to be dismissed].

[...] My limited window into all of this suggests juries might just be made up of people who can't get out of it. Hard to say how bitter that makes them feel listening to an actual case.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by scruffybeard on Sunday August 21 2016, @12:55PM

    by scruffybeard (533) on Sunday August 21 2016, @12:55PM (#391007)

    What a jerk. I bet this guy would be the first to complain about the quality of the jury pool if he needed one. It is only a couple of days, and depending on the jurisdiction, you are given weeks of notice, and usually a chance to defer at least once or twice. No, it is not fun, and usually not a well run process, but it is what is required to insure that the civil and criminal court systems remains fair.

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @02:13PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @02:13PM (#391023)

    The system does not work, at least not in my town. I struggle to get by and work two jobs to make ends meet. Jury duty here pays only $15 per day, and parking costs $20. The end result of that is that I pay $5 to be on the jury. Do you think that I will be an impartial juror knowing that if the case takes more than a day there is a very real risk that I will be homeless?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @06:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @06:52PM (#391153)

      Yeah. He mentioned that in TFA and I included it in TFS.
      Now, against whom will your wrath be directed for being screwed over?

      If the state was the one imposing unpleasantness on me, I'd be inclined to decide against the state.[1]
      ...but then, I'm not a Trump supporter who is easily convinced to blame disempowered groups for the way The Establishment makes the lives of The Common Folk more unpleasant.

      [1] After the revelations of prosecutors overcharging to try to force a plea deal in the Aaron Swartz case[2] and a quasi-recent news story where a judge disallowed the participation of all 250 prosecutors of the Orange County District Attorney's office in a case over which he was presiding because of that group's pattern of dishonesty (this on top of my natural distrust of authority), I'm even more disinclined to side with the state.

      [2] The way I figure it, if you're willing to chance the giant mass of charges a politically-motivated douchebag has piled on you in order to get your knees to buckle and you want to go to trial, chances are that you are more on the side of the angels than the state employee is.

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @02:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @02:14PM (#391027)

    The very point of his complaint is that the jury pool is of low quality and should be fixed by increasing the compensation and being more flexible, as educated people can't realistically drop everything to do jury duty.

    In this world you don't fix mass behavioral issues by shouting "suck it up!!" or "it's shameful to avoid jury duty!!". You provide incentives. The guy observes that the incentives aren't enough and everyone was trying to get out, and your response is to tell him to stop whining.

    It is you who shouldn't complain if you need a jury and it sucks, not him.

    • (Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday August 21 2016, @10:29PM

      by Francis (5544) on Sunday August 21 2016, @10:29PM (#391284)

      It's not about incentives, it's about recognizing that many employers don't pay for time on jury duty and people still need the pay. Around here the municipal court is being sued for only paying $10 a day plus travel. The superior and federal courts both pay minimum wage plus travel.

      My guess is that they finally reached the point where they couldn't get enough jurors.

      I'll be doing Jury duty this time because I've already got the week Off and nothing to do, but a couple weeks later and I wouldn't have been able to afford too. Plus if I do it I'm automatically Off the hook for 2 years.

      • (Score: 2) by cafebabe on Saturday August 27 2016, @12:43PM

        by cafebabe (894) on Saturday August 27 2016, @12:43PM (#393920) Journal

        Around here the municipal court is being sued for only paying $10 a day plus travel.

        Professional cheerleaders sued (and won) for receiving less than minimum wage. Does a court believe that jury service is less valuable than professional cheerleading?

        --
        1702845791×2
        • (Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday August 27 2016, @02:58PM

          by Francis (5544) on Saturday August 27 2016, @02:58PM (#393935)

          It's not the court, it's the legislature that fails to provide the funds. If you talk with a lawyer, bailiff, judge or anybody involved with the courts, they all agree that the pay should be higher.

          The problem is that they aren't the ones that make the decision on jury pay, that's the politicians and they seem to care more about putting people in prison than seeing that justice is served.

          • (Score: 2) by cafebabe on Saturday August 27 2016, @05:25PM

            by cafebabe (894) on Saturday August 27 2016, @05:25PM (#393981) Journal

            Could former jurors file a class action lawsuit for minimum wage or better? There is a good precedent. Despite willingly entering into a fixed payment contract, the cheerleaders subsequently obtained terms exceeding minimum wage. Ignoring that, why doesn't any judge rule that a case cannot be tried because the jurors are inadequately compensated and therefore biased?

            --
            1702845791×2
            • (Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday August 27 2016, @06:27PM

              by Francis (5544) on Saturday August 27 2016, @06:27PM (#393996)

              There's already a lawsuit going on locally against the municipal court. Both the federal and superior court already pay minimum wage, but municipal court only pays $10 a day.

              The basis for the suit is that it unfairly discriminates against minorities in court as minorities are more likely to be unable to serve jury duty because of financial hardships.

  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday August 21 2016, @03:57PM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Sunday August 21 2016, @03:57PM (#391060) Journal

    It is only a couple of days

    It is not necessarily "only a couple of days." That depends on the your state/municipality (some places only make you report one day; others each day for a week), and if you are chosen to serve, the specific trial you are chosen for (which could last a day or months).

    No, it is not fun, and usually not a well run process, but it is what is required to insure that the civil and criminal court systems remains fair.

    Precisely why is it "required to insure that the civil and criminal court systems remain fair" that we have what is "usually not a well-run process"??

    I agree that some of the author's complaints are a bit of whining. (And he actually demonstrates that he's a jerk when the first day someone hogs the wireless bandwidth by streaming a movie, so the second day the author decides to torrent a bunch of stuff for no apparent reason -- likely messing up a bunch of other people's experience.)

    On the other hand, there are a bunch of legitimate complaints interspersed in the article. For example, he says that there was a great deal of confusion about which courthouse to show up to, and many people didn't figure it out until they spent 45 minutes standing in a security line (and then had to go to another building). That sounds like something that could be resolved relatively easily with signs and/or a clear notice on the jury summons.

    There are all sorts of things like this that make the jury duty system "usually not a well-run process," and many of them could be improved with just a little thought, or even just a realization that there might be other ways to do stuff. I've lived in a place where things were very organized in terms of whether you had to show up -- you called on the day before you were supposed to report, and an automated message told you whether your group needed to show. If the case load was low for the week, they'd just tell you that your group was excused completely. In contrast, I also lived in a place where you were expected to show up every day for a week and just sit there and wait to see if they needed you. Why?? Jury summons tend to be sent out a month or two in advance (if not more), so how could they be expected to determine the right number of jurors needed that far in advance? Is it that hard to take 2 minutes every day to record an automated message which could save hundreds of prospective jurors from missing work and showing up on a given day for no reason??

    Also, the author is simply reporting the fact that the vast majority of people seem to have excuses trying to get out of serving, except for those too poor or too stupid to figure out an effective excuse. That's a real problem, since it affects the composition of our jury pool.

    I completely agree with you that jury service is a civic duty, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't point out flaws or try to make the experience better. If jury duty didn't resemble spending a week at the DMV as much, maybe fewer people would be making every excuse they can to try to get out of that civic duty.

    • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday August 22 2016, @05:35AM

      by krishnoid (1156) on Monday August 22 2016, @05:35AM (#391473)

      Is it that hard to take 2 minutes every day to record an automated message which could save hundreds of prospective jurors from missing work and showing up on a given day for no reason??

      It isn't, at least in some California counties; you call every afternoon that week to see if you need to come in, rather than come in (seriously?) daily. It's obvious inconsistencies like this that make me wish Google provided government computing services/infrastructure. Heck, if Apple did it, people would probably line up for jury duty.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday August 21 2016, @07:24PM

    by sjames (2882) on Sunday August 21 2016, @07:24PM (#391170) Journal

    What a jerk

    Why? He did his duty.

    He's not being unreasonable. There really are people who will be absolutely ruined if they are forced to serve, especially if it takes a while. In my county, the only sure deferral is death (your own). What are your odds of a fair trial if half the jury is wondering what they will do when they can't pay the rent? (and since you're the star of the show, guess who they can't help but blame). I have been through the jury process a few times (never been chosen) and believe me, they make sure the prospective jurors know that the reason they're not on their way home is that the defendant insisted on a trial (never because the prosecutor couldn't be reasonable).

    Employers are required to let you serve, but they are not required to pay you while you serve. If you don't have a set schedule, they may decide to zero out your hours for a week or two just in case.

    You don;'t really expect people to end up homeless in order to serve do you? Well, in many counties, they apparently do. They could at least pay minimum wage to take care of the people most likely to be grievously harmed by serving.