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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.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by driverless on Sunday August 21 2016, @01:18PM
My name seems to be on some kind of list of people who are too smart and educated.
Any sign of education or intelligence means you're excluded from jury duty. No defence lawyer will allow a juror who shows signs of being able to figure things out for themselves rather than being swayed by emotive lawyers' arguments.
In forty years I've never been called up for jury duty, and I'd actually like to be on a jury so I can carry out an (informal) psychological study on logical fallacies and cognitive biases.
Dr.Driverless, PhD.
(Score: 3, Informative) by SDRefugee on Sunday August 21 2016, @02:13PM
One absolutely gar-on-teed way to get kicked out of a jury... say the two magic words "Jury" and "Nullification"......
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Monday August 22 2016, @01:41AM
Or wear a pin with FIJA on it. Though that might slide past...
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2, Interesting) by GmanTerry on Monday August 22 2016, @04:21AM
I was called in 2009 for Jury Duty. When I got there we were told that it wasn't a trial, we were there for Grand Jury Duty. That is four months of two full days a week. They needed 16 jurors. I can completely understand the problem with a citizen being ask to give up two days a week for four months. Almost everyone wanted out. If you work for a company that doesn't pay you full pay on jury duty you are screwed. No family can afford to take that sort of a pay cut. We were paid $12.00 a day plus $0.44 milage from the center of your zip code to the courthouse. I believe mine gave me about $37.00 a week. That was for two full eight hour days each week. The judge went through each person in the jury pool and most couldn't take two days off of work for four months. So what do you end up with? Mostly retired folks. I think we had four people who were actually working jobs while on our Grand Jury. The County has four Grand Juries running at all times. We were given about four cases per day but some cases took a whole day and a few longer. We probably heard 160 plus cases in the four months I served. The judge said our jury was one of the few he has seen that ended with all the original jurors, using none of the alternates.
However, that said, the old saying that you can indict a ham sandwich is true. All we hear is the prosecutor and the cops. Out of all the cases we returned, and all but one were "True Bills" which means they were referred to be tried. We added one count to an indictment where a woman was selling drugs out of her car and had a baby with her. We added a count of child endangerment. The one we let go was a 12 year old boy who touched his step sister's breasts while she was sleeping. He confessed and the State wanted to put him on the lifetime sex offender rolls. Twelve of us thought destroying the life of a 12 year old was unacceptable in a civilized society. We actually engaged in jury nullification and the words were spoken. It takes 12 of the 16 to make a judgement. Four Grand Jurors thought he should be labeled a sex offender, the other 12 of us thought not. I am not in any way a liberal but to destroy a life before it begins is uncivilized. Every day it happens somewhere. That is the basic story of my four months from 2009 to 2010.
All that aside, I actually learned a lot and enjoyed the companionship of my fellow jurors. You are one hundred percent correct that the prosecutors didn't like the idea of one of us even knowing that jury nullification was possible.
Since when is "public safety" the root password to the Constitution?
(Score: 1) by cyka on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:16AM
If you work for a company that doesn't pay you full pay on jury duty you are screwed.
You might be interested to know that in Australia employers are legally required to pay you the difference in your wages while you are serving on a jury.
(Score: 1) by GmanTerry on Monday August 22 2016, @04:33AM
I was called in 2009 for Jury Duty. When I got there we were told that it wasn't a trial, we were there for Grand Jury Duty. That is four months of two full days a week. They needed 16 jurors. I can completely understand the problem with a citizen being ask to give up two days a week for four months. Almost everyone wanted out. If you work for a company that doesn't pay you full pay on jury duty you are screwed. No family can afford to take that sort of a pay cut. We were paid $12.00 a day plus $0.44 milage from the center of your zip code to the courthouse. I believe mine gave me about $37.00 a week. That was for two full eight hour days each week. The judge went through each person in the jury pool and most couldn't take two days off of work for four months. So what do you end up with? Mostly retired folks. I think we had four people who were actually working on our Grand Jury. The County has four Grand Juries running at all times. We were given about four cases per day but some cases took a whole day and a few longer. We probably heard 160 plus cases in the four months I served. The judge said our jury was one of the few he has seen that ended with all the original jurors, using none of the alternates.
However, that said, the old saying that you can indict a ham sandwich is true. All we hear is the prosecutor and the cops. Out of all the cases we returned, and all but one were "True Bills" which means they were referred to be tried. We added one count to an indictment where a woman was selling drugs out of her car and had a baby with her. We added a count of child endangerment. The one we let go was a 12 year old child who touched his step sister's breasts while she was sleeping. He confessed and the State wanted to put him on the lifetime sex offender rolls. Twelve of us thought destroying the life of a 12 year old was unacceptable in a civilized society. It takes 12 of the 16 to make a judgement. Four Grand Jurors thought he should be labeled a sex offender. When we deliberated the phrase "Jury Nullification" was talked about. I am not in any way a liberal but to destroy a life before it begins is uncivilized. Every day it happens. That is the basic story of my four months from 2009 to 2010.
All that aside, I actually learned a lot and enjoyed the companionship of my fellow jurors.
Since when is "public safety" the root password to the Constitution?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Sunday August 21 2016, @02:34PM
That was my experience last time I was called. Wait in this room with several hundred others for 1 hour, then go away and some of us come back in 30 minutes to wait another 30 minutes. I was actually tapped for the initial phases of a trial and moved on to a court room with 50 potential jurors so the lawyers for the 2 sides could pick which 12 of us they wanted on the jury. More waiting. When everyone was accounted for, the judge started by introducing the two sides and treating us to a little speech about how civilized this whole process was, and without us, the 2 sides would have to settle their differences with a duel, or the injured party would have to just suck it up. Thanked us all for making it possible to have a trial by jury. Blathered on a bit more in that vein. Well, that's nice and all, but as the article suggests, we all could be better served by a lot more modernizing of the whole process. Also, I would have preferred they move along and not spend any more of anyone's time on little civic duty speeches of that sort-- that was pretty close to the blogger's complaint of treating us like slow children. Thankfully it wasn't too long a speech, but we'd all already had half a day taken from our lives. Point us to a website with that, or write that sort of stuff down on a handout and pass those out, if they must. The right to a speedy trial ought to extend to the jurors.
The defense lawyer got a little desperate because he hadn't used all his rejections, and was really fishing for reasons. I gave him one, and I'm sure he had me booted. I would have served, but I was just fine with not being picked. It was a case about not paying for work done, supposedly because the work was shoddy, and hoo boy have I been on the unpaid end of a deal like that. My sympathies were totally with the workers who were being cheated of their pay. Even if the work really was shoddy, imagine if the defendant got away with not paying for that reason. Employers would be falling all over themselves to claim shoddy workmanship and not pay any workers anything. I know employers lie about that. Been done to me. For a year our work was good, and then all of a sudden it wasn't. Management felt like throwing that excuse out there and the fact they'd run out of money and couldn't make payroll wasn't somehow enough of a reason to cheat everyone. We hadn't stepped up, hadn't worked hard enough, it was all our fault the glorious start up was failing, and so we didn't deserve to be paid anyway. They knew they were broke, and chose to gamble that last month that income would at last start picking up, they'd turn the corner, and be able to make payroll by the time it was due, or possibly just a few days late. They should have informed everyone of the gamble they were taking, but of course they did not.
Some factual problems with the submission: Students are not required to miss class. Nor are parents required to "figure out child care". Being the sole person caring for a child is a valid reason not to serve. Same with attending school. However, employers are required to allow workers to serve.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Oakenshield on Sunday August 21 2016, @04:19PM
But ONCE about seven years ago I was called for grand jury. The judge and prosecutor took any and every excuse not to serve and dismissed each member who objected with cause to serving. Then the prosecutor asked "Who just does not want to serve?" Anyone raising their hand was dismissed as well. We still had 14 people left. I had to report to the courthouse every Wednesday morning for three months.
Since I worked for the state, I got my regular pay as long as I surrendered my jury pay ($10 per day). So I had no objections to serving. There were many of us that were "educated" in the pool and it was pretty diverse as to age, status, and background. It was an eye opening experience to see the inner workings of a grand jury versus what you might expect, but it was fascinating. The sad part was that probably 70% of the cases were drug or drug related.
We are a fairly small middle class county so my experience may have been biased. The judge told us that our neighboring county to the west is not so generous with dismissals and that grand jury duty is five days a week for three months. That would suck for someone not in my position to serve.
(Score: 3, Informative) by art guerrilla on Sunday August 21 2016, @02:35PM
just so you know, in many areas you can volunteer for jury duty, don't have to wait to be called...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @06:54PM
In my state, any positive indication you want to serve on a jury allows you to be dismissed for cause.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday August 21 2016, @10:19PM
I was thinking about volunteering over my break, but I forgot and wound up summoned anyways. I've lost count off how many times I've been summoned. This'll be my second time serving as usually I've been unable to free the time.
Now they at least pay minimum wage plus travel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @12:53AM
I've lost count off how many times
Francis! I am picturing "12 Angry Francises".
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday August 21 2016, @05:52PM
"No Lawyer will allow a juror who shows signs of being able to figure things out for themselves rather than being swayed by emotive lawyers' arguments."
FTFY, The prosecution does just as much as the defense to get rid of any potential jurors who will not believe an LEO's testimony is somehow beyond question.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by ledow on Sunday August 21 2016, @05:57PM
What sort of crappy legal system lets lawyers choose people on the jury?
No wonder the US is in the state it is.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:53PM
Lawyers are allowed to get people off the jury because of bias, of most kinds. In many cases in the US, in addition to bias that the lawyers can demonstrate, they are allowed a set number (say 3) of strikes without needing to demonstrate bias. There are a few rules governing them - they cannot be used to eliminate a group (e.g. black people, or women) from the jury pool.
They are most certainly not allowed to affirm jurors, or pull them in. Just get them kicked out of the jury pool. In many lawyer dramas, it's considered quite important to know who will be taking their place.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday August 21 2016, @10:22PM
There's limits. They get a small number of jurors they can reject without cause. They have an unlimited number they can reject with cause.
It's imperfect, but it's better than the alternative.
(Score: 3, Touché) by deadstick on Sunday August 21 2016, @06:08PM
Well, Doc, I have a Master's degree in engineering, and I've sat on two juries, one civil and one criminal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @07:27PM
Panel filtering is a Yuuuuuge waste of time, and likely useless. Unless it's a murder case, they should take what they get as-is. If there is one dissenting juror, then let the judge be the tie-breaker. That way one nut doesn't affect the case.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Monday August 22 2016, @01:12AM
I'm not from the US, but it's no different here.
I was called up for jury duty (High Court, not District Court, so more important cases) and was told to wear a suit and tie if I didn't want to serve. Sure enough, they couldn't get rid of me fast enough.
The funny thing is, a guy I was chatting with while we were waiting was also wearing a suit, and he works as a concrete cutter, he had heard the same thing I had, and was also bounced very quickly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:09PM
The prosecution doesn't like it either. Neither side wants smart people.
This really says something about lawyers. Each lawyer believes that emotional arguments will benefit them, not the opposition. Each lawyer is thinking he is so much more persuasive than the other lawyer.
Obvious, it can not be the case that each lawyer is better than the other.