Jury Duty!

[chicken]

Oh boy, I just got a jury duty summons. ?!?

If I get picked the trial extends past the date I become a Massachusetts resident, what happens then? Would I suddenly become an ineligible juror?

I hope I don't get picked, because I sure don't want to miss that much work.

Does anyone have any jury stories of their own to tell? Do, tell. :-)

Comments

[tannymonster.livejournal.com]

not personally no. But miss_lou had to do jury duty just after we broke up and I was amused by the fact that they got the little bailiff guy to go and get a birthday cake for them to eat in their silly little jury room because it was her 21st birthday on one of the days.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

That is pretty amusing. I mean, it doesn't make up for having to spend one's birthday in a jury room, but still.

[saifai.livejournal.com]

Meh. I got nothing. Got summons once. Threw myself into a near panic attack right up to the day before I was to attend court. They cancelled at the last minute though. *bounce*

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

What? May I ask why they cancelled? That's very odd (but satisfying).

[saifai.livejournal.com]

Not really sure. I think they rescheduled the court date. Either way, all of the jurors that were on file were dismissed.

BTW, I was gonna send ya' the vid files last night but my connection went down (just as I hit the send button as a matter of fact... lol). I'll try again later this morning.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

No hurry on the files. :-)

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Hey, I just got a jury duty summons too, in Massachusetts. The date is in the summer.

It's for the courthouse way out in Ayer. I got summoned there once before, back before I even had a car, but they had a number you could call the night before to see if they needed you, and they didn't.

So that didn't render me temporarily ineligible to get summoned again, and they tapped me a year or two later, this time at the East Cambridge courthouse near Lechmere. This was when the Louise Woodward case was nearing trial and I was scared to death that I would end up embroiled in that circus. But they moved the venue away from there before my time came.

I went there, sat around all day, and didn't get anywhere near a panel. The end. Massachusetts has a "one day/one trial" system, wherein if you either (a) serve on a jury or (b) wait for a whole day and don't get on a jury, you're off the hook for three years. They didn't get around to bothering me again until just now.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

I don't know where Ayer is, or how far it is from where you live. Just tell me -- can they summon you anywhere in Massachusetts? I am glad to hear you didn't get embroiled in a huge case.

The "one day/one trial" system sounds very sane, and probably better than what Rhode Island has. We'll see.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I live inside Route 128; Ayer is way out to the northwest beyond 495. It's not that far from where I work, though, so it's not as if the commute is unusual for me these days. There's a commuter rail station there (which must be close to the courthouse since it's a pretty small town), so in theory I'd have had public transportation there.

I'm not sure what the policy is on where they can summon you.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...Of course, one day/one trial doesn't apply to the federal courts, and you can still get summoned by the feds to far more onerous duty. The grand-jury system is particularly bad; I know a guy who got summoned to be part of a federal grand jury, and they basically owned him one day a week for months on end, sitting on indictment after indictment.

[kaydee23.livejournal.com]

I always get picked. I've been on a worker's compensation case. A civil case over a furniture deal gone bad. (It was thousands of dollars worth of furniture.)

I was also on gang-banger murder trial that lasted 3 weeks. During the penalty phase, we found out the murderer (we convicted him) had robbbed, beaten, and left for dead a student at the school from my high school. I had to tell the bailiff so they could stop the penalty phase. The judge cleared the courtroom and asked me if I knew the student or even recognized him. I didn't. He asked me if it was going to influence my decision, and I said I didn't think so, but that I was very surprised to hear that the defendant was the one who had beaten the student from my school. I'd heard about this happening to a student at my school, but we had 2,300 students at our school, and I'd never seen him, and I'd definitely never taught him.

The defendant's attorney said he was satisfied that I could be impartial, and they started the penalty phase of the trial back up.

It was kind of exciting, in a scary sort of way. The murder victim's gang would sit in the courtroom for a while, and then the judge would make them get out so the murderer's family and gang could sit in the courtroom.

Also, they sat in the hallway of the courthouse and we had to walk by them every day. And after the trial each day, they'd mill about in front of the courthouse, and we had to walk right through them.

Then, when the penalty phase was over and we sent him to prison for a minimum of 20 to life, we had to walk through the murderer's family and gang out on the street. They were on one side, and the victim's gang and family were on the other side, and they yelled and swore at each and threatened violence against each other and against us. Both sides were pissed at us because we either gave him too much or too little time, depending on who was complaining.

In the movies and on television, they show the police coming out to settle that stuff down. I went back into the courthouse and asked if one of the police officers there would walk me to my car, which was several blocks away, and all these police officers just looked at me and started laughing and turned away from me. I asked them again, and they said, "If you're so worried, call a cab." Yes they did. I walked anyway, but no one followed me.

It was very weird and scary because only one sheriff's deputy was standing out there and there were over 100 people standing on the street screaming at each other.

Only in Houston.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Whoa! You lead a very interesting life. Thanks for the stories, they are quite fascinating.

I can't believe the police laughed at you. They need to take that stuff seriously. One girl here in Rhode Island, a witness, was murdered in her driveway the day before she was to stand witness.

[the-automatik.livejournal.com]

No one reports crimes here because they are so scared of the perpetrators exacting vengeance.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Aren't you glad to be moving to Canada?

[the-automatik.livejournal.com]

Well, there is still crime there, actually. It's probably not as high of a rate, though.

[coaxme.livejournal.com]

just pretend to be completely crazy when they interview you and they won't pick you....er maybe? it works on tv.

Do call that number they give you to see if they need you though, bunches of my friends never had to go to court at all since they were told they weren't needed.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

I didn't see a number like that, but maybe I'm just blind. ;-) Thanks for the advice.