Jury Duty Report

[giza]

Okay, here's my long overdue post about Jury Duty.

We had to be in the Jury Marshalling room at 8:15 AM on Tuesday. Since I no longer own a car, this meant getting out of my place around 6:30 AM so I could catch a series of two trains to take me into Norristown. Ugh. They checked our IDs against our summons as we filed in.


A nice lady who was the "supervisor" came up to the front of the room, introduced herself, and showed us a short video that describes jury duty. Some interesting things I learned from this video:

• The ultimate guilty/not guilty verdict rests with the jury. The judge is merely a "referee".
• Jurors must weigh only the evidence that is presented. They are not allowed to talk to witnesses or visit the crime scene on their own.
• Jurors must not discuss an ongoing case with anyone.
• Everyone in Philadelphia is white.

The last point is a bit of sarcasm, but I did not recall seeing any minorities in the video. They need to fix that.

After the video, Judge Drayer came in and spoke to us about the "deterrent effect" of merely showing up for Jury Duty. In 2005, there were 10,000 criminal complaints filed in Montgomery County. Only 60 of those resulted in full jury trials. The rest resulted in pleas. This is because jury verdicts are hard to overturn, and in many cases when the trial starts, the defendant quickly realizes how screwed he is and quickly enters a plea.

What is interesting, BTW, is that at NO time during the day was it ever explicitly mentioned that the accused might actually be innocent. Of course, I did not serve in an actual Jury that day, so perhaps that would have been mentioned at the trial.

Judge Drayer also explained to us that the case load has been going up, mostly in the form of civil cases. There were some changes in state law recently, and medical malpractice cases can now be held in county court instead of the (district?) courts in Philadelphia.

As judge was wrapping up, some "small business owner" actually had the gall to speak up and ask if he could be excused because "he had multiple work crews out". The judge politely told him to STFU explained that he has no role in the jury selection process and could not help him.

Then we were told that day, there were 3 cases: 2 civil and 1 criminal. The jury supervisors were the second-to-last people to know if a jury was needed, and we would be the very last people to know. So, from that point on, we had to hang out in the jury area until/if we were called. There were books and magazines available, and RJ-45 jacks out side in the jury area. The jury area outside the marshalling room, BTW, looked kinda like this:



Sorry for the crappy pic, the lighting was really awful in the courthouse. It seemed fine to the naked eye, but all my interior pictures were bad.

We were also told that work vouchers were available for employers if we would like them. Also, this week was "Juror Appreciation Week". (hah!)

Overall, during the "waiting period", we were treated very well. Donuts were put out for us, and our juror badge entitled us to get free coffee from the coffee shop. You can bet that I made use of that little perk.

Now, if you note the juror badge at the top of this post, each of us jurors had one. We were told that it was to be worn on our chest at all times. This was so that we were clearly identified and that cases were not discussed in front of us. If a case were to be discussed in front of a juror, it would potentially contaminate the jury pool and result in a mistrial. That would be really bad.

Right before lunch, we were called back into the marshalling room. At this point a "Jury Panel" was selected. 50 random people from the jury pool were called out by number (real names were not used) They were then assigned a panel number from 1 to 50 and then went upstairs to a court room. My number was not called, so I got to hang out in the marshalling room.

While waiting in the marshalling room, it turned out that the guy sitting next to was a law professor from Temple University. He proceeded to give us a running commentary about what was probably going on in the courtroom, and was also hoping he would get called, just for his own amusement value.

Shortly after lunch, the 50 jurors returned. The story we got back is that the first group of 10 people went into the courtroom. The defendant took one look at them, at which point his attorney asked for a sidebar with the judge and the jurors were asked to step back out. A few minutes later they were told the case was "settled".

After all 50 jurors returned, the supervisor came back in the room told us that the other two cases had been settled as well, and that our service was now complete. She thanked us from coming and told us that we were free to go!

During lunch, I spent some time wandering around Norristown and took some pictures. Because the sun was so bright, I had, for the first time ever on this camera, overexposed pictures. I wonder if there's a way to adjust the shutter speed of my camera... Anyway, the full set of pictures is over here. Here are a few selected pics:

Comments

[whitefeet.livejournal.com]

"While waiting in the marshalling room, it turned out that the guy sitting next to was a law professor from Temple University. He proceeded to give us a running commentary about what was probably going on in the courtroom, and was also hoping he would get called, just for his own amusement value."

Hell, why do you think I want to be called?

[girtygrin.livejournal.com]

To be honest I rather hope to get jury duty some day. The US legal system has always rather interested me. When I was in college the court house down town was right down the street so my friend Jeff and I would frequently wander in to watch cases that wern't closed. It is all quite amusing and interesting in my book.

[cyriljackal.livejournal.com]

Almost exactly the same as my turn a week previous. Uncannily the same.

[lockemaison.livejournal.com]

wow. if i hadn't spoken up i would have been on a real jury for a criminal case. so they're saying that's actually a rarity?

figures. i was called twice in my month.

[giza.livejournal.com]

The frequency varies per county, I think.

In mine, it's once every 3 years. So my jury duty obligation is satisfied for the rest of this year and the next 2 years.

[whitefeet.livejournal.com]

Any clue if it's based on voter registration or drivers registration?

[giza.livejournal.com]

Yes.

They explained that they get the names of potential jurors from a wide variety of sources, including both of those.

[omnibahumut.livejournal.com]

In Philadelphia, its based on Voter Registration... I was summoned a little while ago, and I'm registered to vote, but didn't have a state ID (let alone a license) at the time.

[whitefeet.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'll get called in some time then

[lockemaison.livejournal.com]

yeah ours is once every 3 years too. Here's the thing: you can be called once per week during your month. So I can't get called for 3 years. The month I was on, i was called on my 3rd and 5th week. Yeah, 5th week. I had no idea. 5 weeks in the month. I missed the 5th week because I never bothered to call and had to show up to defend myself in court. I thought my month was over after 4 weeks (logic would dictate), but not so. I had an obligation to the first day of the next month (oct 1 to nov 1), and I was called on nov 1 and didn't show. That's how I explained it to the judge and I got dismissed, but I had to wake up early again and go to the court and hang out with all sorts of undesirables all for a misunderstanding.

Lesson: make sure you don' t still have an obligation for the rest of this month.

[zorinlynx.livejournal.com]

A month can have a sixth week:

      May 2004
 S  M Tu  W Th  F  S
                   1  first week
 2  3  4  5  6  7  8  second week
 9 10 11 12 13 14 15  third
16 17 18 19 20 21 22  fourth
23 24 25 26 27 28 29  fifth
30 31                 sixth

Depending on their computer system, it probably would treat the 30th and 31st of May 2004 as a "sixth week" :)

-Z

[omnibahumut.livejournal.com]

If I dragged myself all the way out there to sit around for a couple of hours and go home, I'd be rather annoyed. I think that if I couldn't get out of Jury Duty, I'd want to be picked so that my time wasn't wasted.

[giza.livejournal.com]

I got out of work, yet got paid for it. That wasn't such a bad deal.

[unclekage.livejournal.com]

A certain little old lady that I know, and who will remain nameless, got a jury summons. She doesn't like the system that requires her to go in there, all dolled up (you know how little old ladies are) and then sit around bored for 3-6 hours only to be told to go home.

So she got out of it. I heard this and said, "How did you manage to convince them to let you out of it?"

She said, "I wrote back and told them that I experience 'Periodic fits of incontinence that I don't want to tell my doctor about because it's embarrassing.'"

Ping! Excused! A winnar is her!

[xshengx.livejournal.com]

place is pretty. i think i've been by there before....a while ago, maybe.
free coffee is the best coffee.

[nidonocu.livejournal.com]

Sounds pretty fun all in all :) Nice photos too! ^_^

[wildw0lf.livejournal.com]

What you experienced in the waiting area was about the best I ever got to see, and I've had jury duty at least 3-4 times now.

But man...free donuts and coffee. I only wish I had access to that :)