Jury Duty

[brigdh]

I have been summoned for jury duty, LJ! I have never been summoned before, and am sort of surprised that they managed to summon me for NYC, since I have very few official documents with my address here. I think it must be taxes; that's the only thing I do with the NYC government.

Anyway, though I am working on getting a letter from my employer which says I am way too valuable to waste on jury duty (heh, whatever), it seems likely that I will have to hang around and use those valuable skills to avoid being chosen. What is your advice? I have heard variously: dress really nicely, dress really sloppily, exaggerate stories of any crime which has happened to you, exaggerate your amount of higher learning. What do you say, LJ?

Comments

[weirdquark]

I have also heard that the more higher learning you have, the less likely it is that you will be chosen, but I have to say I've never gotten to test this for myself as every single time I've been summoned for jury duty they sent me home after a few hours because the cases were all settled out of court and they didn't need us anymore.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I will hope for that, then!

[pocketmouse]

I'd vote for exaggerate any higher learning or specific knowledge of law/circumstances related to the case. My high school government teacher just mentions the fact that he teaches that, and never has to do jury duty.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[tdanaher.livejournal.com]

My experience says, clothing means absolutely nothing to anyone there short of something that's actively offensive in odor, and possibly in the amount of skin it doesn't cover, or if wearing a t-shirt that has some slogan on it that's overtly meant to evoke reactions.

Mostly, a common factor I've seen for people being dismissed is when they say they have some connection to relatives or friends in law enforcement, or if they say they may be biased in a way that's relevant to the particular trial. Like, one trial I was on dismissed a couple of women because they were nurses, when the defense involved aspects of treatment in a hospital.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I wasn't sure how accurate that clothing advice was.

Hmmm, thanks. I don't know anyone in law enforcement, but I did have my apartment robbed two years ago, which may be relevant, depending on the case.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Call the night before you go to see if the case is still taking place - I don't know how it works up there, but down here if the case is settled before the jury selection, then they cancel it and put everyone's names back in the pool.

I don't actually try to get out of jury duty (yes I'm one of those tiresome people who quacks on about "doing your civic duty" and all that, but honestly" if I were in a courtroom and needed a jury, I would WANT me on the jury), but I've only been selected once. And that case was declared a mistrial before it started because one of the jurors didn't show up, and as the plaintiff was a minor (sexual abuse case, defendant pled guilty, this was just the punishment phase) the judge said that having an obviously reluctant juror could open it for the defendant's lawyer to ask for it to be declared a mistrial, and he didn't want to put the girl through testifying twice. ANYWAY

In the jury selections I've been to, they tend to ask what my opinions are on the kinds of laws that were broken/issues concerned. My boyfriend got himself out of a jury by explaining that he didn't think prostitution should be illegal and saying the words "jury nullification." Which isn't really a concept that holds much water, but signals to the lawyers that you are a smartass who is probably going to be extremely annoying to deal with. (The lawyer asking him the questions actually threw his arms up when he heard that.)

I've been asked what book I was reading and what it was about. (It was about werewolves in ancient Rome, actually.) Mom theorizes it was to find out if it was the Bible, in which case I expect that the prosecution would have wanted me on the jury and the defendant wouldn't (sexual abuse case).

In that same case, I was also asked if I thought there was a chance I could find the defendant innocent. I honestly said yes, if they could convince me that he had no idea that what he was doing was wrong, which I think was what got me on the jury. What I *didn't* say was that he'd probably have to be mentally incapacitated in some way to be truly unaware that it was wrong, and that as someone who ran a pawn shop, he showed plenty of non-incapacitation.

If you have a personal connection to the case or any of the people involved, including lawyers and judges, they do not want you on it.

Remember, they deal with LOTS of people trying to get out of jury duty and are hip to the techniques. You're probably better off being honest.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

In NYC, you're not called for a specific case- you're called to go down and do whatever cases are up that day. (And in NYC, they're not going to run out of cases. :) )

I wouldn't mind being on a jury someday, if just to see what it's like. But I'm a graduate student and that means there are so few clearly defined boundaries and expectations (and yet so many of them) that it would be very difficult for me to take the time to do so right now.

Remember, they deal with LOTS of people trying to get out of jury duty and are hip to the techniques.

Yeah, I should have been clearer: I definitely do not mean lie, and I've seen some advice on the internet in the vein of "act crazy!" or "act racist!" and that's not what I'm looking for. I more meant, "what actual aspects of my background will help reduce my chances of being chosen?"

But thanks for all the detail! I've never been to jury duty before, and so I had no idea what to expect.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Down here you can get out of jury duty by being a student: "...you are enrolled and attend college;"

Check for "jury duty exemptions" and see if NY's got something like that.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Nah, here you can get it postponed for being a student, but not totally exempted. And since our semester ends next week, it's easier for me to do it now than in six months, when we're back in school (and also when I am planning on being out of the country).

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Bring a good book. It is mostly waiting around.

I've heard various, but yeah,I think it mostly boils down to having had specific connections to cases; did you ever slip & fall, have you ever been robbed, or what have you.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

*grins* I have a hard time going to the bodega on the corner without a book, so there's no chance of going to jury duty without one!

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

Clothing means nothing, and it's also about who you are in relation to who else shows up.

I've been called four times for jury duty. Once I got dismissed for no apparent reason (which they can do). Once I called the night before and learned I didn't have to go in. The other two times I hung around reading in the holding room, then got sent home at lunchtime because they were all set.

Just presenting an alternative to "OMG jury duty is the worst!" I should add that in MA the rule is "one day or one trial" so maybe we're less likely to get sucked into a vortex.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Ours is two days or a trial. Today was annoying but not awful, so hopefully tomorrow will be the same.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Jury duty is fascinating stuff if you actually get picked. While not dramatic and well lit like Law & Order, it is interesting. Plus, juries always need thoughtful people! I have only been picked once and it was for a really minor thing (traffic court) but it was very engaging to listen to testimony and the arguments and decide.

There's a lot of waiting, so just bring a book.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't mind being on a jury someday, if just to see what it's like. But I'm a graduate student and that means there are so few clearly defined boundaries and expectations (and yet so many of them) that it would be very difficult for me to take the time to do so right now.

*grins* I have a hard time going to the bodega on the corner without a book, so there's no chance of going to jury duty without one!

[graene.livejournal.com]

Don't know how it works up there, but down here they send out about twice as many summons as for people they'll need and ask you to call the night before. There's a recording "Summons #1-~250 please be here, everyone else is not needed." If it's a school conflict (eg midterm week) and you call right away on getting the summons, I've found that the clerks are generally pretty good about working with you, because they still have the whole pool of potentials, not like calling day before when they're already worried about enough people showing. You may wind up getting a summons again for the next pool start date, but it'll be a high number, for example.

I believe in the civic duty and all, and been summoned a few times and still never gotten to go down to the courthouse for jury duty.

[rm.livejournal.com]

None of those things apply here.

You have to do three days in the room and are then free if you don't get picked. There are also no permanent exemptions from jury duty here -- you can only defer it a certain number of times. And after the first deferral you have to go down and do it in person.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

My best advice is to grab any opportunity to announce bias/inability to follow the judge's instructions at voir dire. Often a case will hand you the ability to do that: in criminal court, one can honestly claim things like having been the victim of a burglary, say, or having close acquaintance with a victim of domestic abuse, and then go on to say that under the circumstances you would have difficulty considering only the material put into evidence by the parties, and not unconsciously or consciously supplementing it with your own speculation/understanding of the usual dynamics of such cases/whatever. On the civil side you can probably also find something that you can declare yourself prejudiced over: the case involves a big corporation and you hate them, it's a tort case against a driver who was talking on his cellphone and you consider all such cell phone use inherently evil, yadda yadda.

To make this work you need to be a little reticent about revealing it -- shy and embarrassed and trying to be helpful is probably the best affect. If you're too upfront about it you'll look like you're trying to game the system, and once a judge suspects that you're at risk of finding yourself empaneled anyway, with instructions from the bench to try a little harder and see if you can't be fair after all. The party you've said you can't be fair to will normally want to be rid of you, and the judge will normally agree; but if there's been trouble assembling a panel for the case, or the court is short of people who responded to the jury summons, there'll be more pressure to try to keep everyone they possibly can.

In a case where people don't give you enough information so that you can make a plausible argument you can't hear it fairly, or where there's really no hook you can hang such an argument on, the best I can offer is to answer the lawyers' questions, to the extent possible, so that both your intelligence and your personality are on display. This will maximize the chances that one party or the other, or both, will feel it is not in their best interests to have you there. In criminal cases especially, the usual rule is that neither side wants anyone too bright or too independent in the jury room: the defense is afraid of your brains, and the prosecution is afraid of your skepticism about authority.

One good thing about this, though: New York finds and calls everyone for jury duty, as often as they're eligible. So it's a relief to get a summons for a time when it's possible for you to do it -- if you get it over with, you'll have a few years during which you don't need to worry about maxing out your allowable deferments and then being summoned for a date that's a serious problem for you. No matter how tempting it may be to put this off, I wouldn't.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Thanks! That's all very helpful. I'm definitely going; as you say, it's much, much better for me to go now than at the beginning of a semester. And I have no problem with doing the two or three days of sitting through voir dires (voirs dires? Can you make verbs plural?). It's just going through a whole trial, unless it were a brief one, would be difficult at any time of year, since all of my grad-student expectations are so vague and hard to put off in a clear way, like people with 9-to-5 jobs can.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

You can totally say voir dires. Just because lawyers still use law French doesn't mean we don't feel free to utterly mangle it. And have for centuries now, so you're right in line with tradition!

And if you ever studied Latin at all -- well, you don't want to know what we do with the pronunciation of words like "certiorari."

[iilii.livejournal.com]

My fiance told them he hated lawyers, hated judges, and didn't trust cops. He was quickly dismissed and hasn't been called in the several years since. Probably anything that would mark you as being difficult to deal with or persuade could get you dismissed. Good luck :)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee. I feel like being that over-the-top about it runs the risk of getting into trouble, but it worked for him!

[lynndyre.livejournal.com]

I'm a little confused why you wouldn't just do the jury duty and get it over with for a while?

[rm.livejournal.com]

You are dismissed in NYC after three days and receive credit for service completed if you are not seated on a jury. A case can last much, much longer than that.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

In America, showing up for selection and not being chosen counts as "getting it over with", since you've done the only part you're obligated to do. If the lawyers don't want you, that's their fault, not yours. Does it not work the same way in your system?

[lynndyre.livejournal.com]

I am American.

What I was trying to ask was why you wanted to get out of it. You'd never previously struck me as the sort of person to avoid responsibilities. You've since answered this in your responses to other people.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so sorry! I apologize; I had the impression that you were Australian.

And yeah, I actually think it might be cool to do jury duty. It would be interesting the first time, at least. It is just- as you probably know- so vague and unclear to be a graduate student that it makes taking the time off very difficult.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

My Pollyanna advice is, don't exaggerate anything. Partly because you're under oath; partly because we, as a society, really need non-stupid people on our juries; but also because you really don't have a prayer of being able to guess what the lawyers are looking for -- and the prosecution and defense are quite likely looking for opposite things. So I would say just be you and take your chances.

That said -- if you have real objections that might make it hard for you to be impartial in a particular case, I would certainly mention them. I, for instance, could not serve on a capital case since I oppose the death penalty and would have a very hard time voting to convict if I knew that sentence was an option.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I should have been clearer: I definitely do not mean lie, and I've seen some advice on the internet in the vein of "act crazy!" or "act racist!" and that's not what I'm looking for. I more meant, "what actual aspects of my background will help reduce my chances of being chosen?"

I wouldn't mind being on a jury someday, if just to see what it's like. But being a graduate student means there are so few clearly defined boundaries and expectations (and yet so many of them) that it would be very difficult to take the time to do so right now.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. I've never been called, my mom got out last time because my dad was in the hospital, and my aunt, who gets called all the time, absolutely loves it and never tries to get out. So alas, I have no advice!

[seaskystone.livejournal.com]

... why don't you just do it?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Well, I am doing jury duty. I just don't want to be selected for a trial.

[seaskystone.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I understand the difference? I thought being called for jury duty meant that you automatically would be involved in a trial.

Anyway it's none of my business really.

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

Being called for jury duty usually means you sit for one day in a large pool of people from which judges and lawyers can interview and select people for various trials. Every state has different laws and there are different requirements for different types of trials (criminal, civil, federal, grand jury, petit jury etc).

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

Do not take my advice, for this past January I followed everything I'd ever been told to do, including having my plane tickets and itinerary for a planned work trip to Europe. And the judge kept me anyway, and put me in the box, and made me stay for SIX WEEKS for a goddamned civil trial. My employer was pissed off but unable to do anything about it. But at least I got to be forewoman. That was fun.

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

Oh and the best part was we had to pay for our own gas, parking, and lunches - and they reimbursed us $5 a day! Woo hoo!