Hey everyone, and good Monday to you all! I am still working on two long pieces about the epic New York Times magazine articles from Sunday, but unfortunately, I have Jury Duty, which means that I’m out of pocket for a minute. I am as thrilled about this as you can possibly imagine [no], because I have always wanted to do this [oh my god no], but there you have it. I plan to show up and tell them the truth about who I am and what I do, as well as all my beliefs about the inherently biased criminal justice system in this country, and I’m sure I’ll be serving on a jury in no time [please no].
Hopefully the other boys will have time to keep you sated until then! See you all very soon!
You could show up dressed like Princess Leia, a la Liz Lemon. :)
Evan- the proper way to deal iwth jury duty is to toss the summons.
They are not coming atfer you, believe me.
Ben, in my state they do. I was on JD once and after the roll call to see if we all showed up, one woman was unaccounted for, the judge asked if she had called or contacted the court, the bailiff said no and the judge said-issue a warrant for her arrest. I would not ignore a summons of any kind.
They have to prove that you ever received the summons. imncde they don’t send it by certified mail, they have no proof.
true…i never had to sign for mine.
I’m on lunch. It is so boring.
If you truly believe that we have an “inherently biased criminal justice system in this country”, shouldn’t you be thrilled with the opportunity to serve on a jury?
You may disagree that the system is inherently biased (rotten to the core in my opinion) Jack, but, whatever one thinks about the system, one person stuck on Jury Duty is not going to fix it.
Evan wont be there to long I wager. The system is pretty good at weeding out anyone with 1)an education 2) knowledge of the law 3) backbone (I was told that jurors MUST rule in accordance with the evidence, and when I pointed out that the surpreme court had explicitly said jury nullification was a legal and viable option for every jury…I found myself suddenly not on the jury. 4) if he has a relative who is a police officer, lawyer, judge etc. one side or the other will strike him off.
After that experience, the last time I got a jury summons it went right on the bottom of the bird cage, and no cops have come after me yet and its been a couple of years. (thats in GA…how VT will deal with it..who knows? They got a pretty small citizen pool to work with!)
Hopefully the worse part (waiting to see if you will be chosen for the jury itself) will be over soon, and Evan will be back and posting.
Gene,
Your experience was not true in my case. I sat as an alternate on a drug case. They asked about any connection to police but initially didn’t reject anyone just took the first 14. They did finally reject the one after calling her to the bench because she worked with police and actually knew one of the arresting officers. I was honored to be on a jury even though I was an alternate and didn’t get to vote.
It was obvious the state had a weak case and they were not going to get a conviction. In fact the prosecutor pulled the other alternate and I aside after the jury had been sent to deliberate and asked how we would have voted and both of us said not guilty. It was a two day trial and we came back the second day and were waiting in the jury room there was some chat and it was obvious even then where it was headed. In fact the prosecution had rested and the defense called one witness and rested they knew the case was weak.
Gene,
One person on a jury makes all the difference to the person on trial. If you’re too lazy for jury duty, it’s probably best that you do stay home.
Gene, Evan lives in TN, Wayne lives in VT.
Glad your experience was better than mine Tim W. Mot people I have spoken to about this have had very different experiences (they certainly did not feel any honor in it)
Gary, thanks for the correction! My bad, should have caught that! Mea culpa.
Jack, it’s not laziness…just awareness that the system is flawed past belief and corrupt in the extreme. Out of curiosity, do you buy your naive sanctimoneousness by the lb. or kilo?
No, Gene, it IS laziness, thinly veiled by arrogance… and you know it. Pathetic.
Do you not vote, sign petitions, etc?
Good for you, Evan, re telling them exactly who you are and your feelings about the American justice system. I totally agree and know first hand, after suing the builder of my house in Minnesota many years ago for shoddy work and outright lying.
The legal office I called assigned a young, inexperienced wimp of a lawyer who challenged nothing when I wrote notes about the lying taking place on the witness stand.
That’s when I lost all faith in the American judicial system, which was certainly not helped by the O.J. Simpson trial, a laugh if there ever was one!
Jerry
nope Jack…it’s an honest, total and complete lack of faith in, respect for or belief in the judicial system. Several cousins on moms side are police (state, county, city). On dads side, lawyers, court reporters, paralegals.
NONE of us have ANY faith in the system. Either side. Zero, de nada, zilch….if you are rich, the right color, and have the right representation, your results will be QUITE differnt than if you are poor, of color and have an overworked state appointed attorney, all other things being equal. And being on the jury, wont make a damn bit of difference. The cynicism, sadly, is very sincere Jack.
I am very active politically by the way, vote in every election, door to door canvasing, phonebanks, whole 9 yards.
So Gene, if you were on the jury, you couldn’t vote your conscience? You couldn’t vote to acquit those that you think are the wrong color or have the wrong representation? You make no sense. You are truly full of it.
I guess it is just easier to assume someone else will do the right thing.
OKAY, so here is the story of my Jury Day!
I will actually say that it was a really good experience, and I half wanted to serve on the jury for the case I was called for. After waiting around all morning in the huge room with a truly fascinating cross section of 500 people or so from the county where I live, bored to tears, I came back from lunch and was among sixty or so called as potential jurors in a criminal case of some sort. So we went over to the criminal justice center and after slowly making our way through security (they called three cases at the same time, so it was probably 180 people total), we found our way up to the chambers. I had, of course, made friends with a really hot guy and a fun girl, both of whom I had lots of mutual friends with, so we kinda stuck together. Upon going in we sat and they didn’t really exactly explain what the voir dire process was going to be like, except that they would be asking us questions. So, at random, they called twenty people up to the jury box. Neither my friends nor I were part of that group, so we watched.
Quickly, we found out that this was a first-degree murder case. So, you know, interesting! We also found out, though the jury commissioner had assured everyone that morning that the chances of being called on a sequestered jury were slim to none, that this was indeed to be a sequestered jury. So they started asking everyone marital status, what they did for a living, can you be fair, etc. One guy who was in the box, who I sort of halfway have met before, is a young media personality in town, and so they asked him what he did, and he said he was a reporter, so of course, I’m paying attention at that point. What are they going to do with any media people in the room, I wondered?
Soon after, that guy was eliminated, though he presented himself just fine. I assume that one of the lawyers just didn’t want to deal with a smart reporter being on the jury. As each person was eliminated, another would be called to fill the spot. THEN, as the defense lawyer was questioning, he stated that this case involved homosexuality, and would anyone have a problem with that? He didn’t specify whether we were dealing with a hate crime, a closet issue, a crime of passion, a combination of all of that, or what, but we pretty much understood that the victim was gay and that his sexuality played a part here. No one in the box had any problem with dealing with a case involving homosexuality, but it was at that moment that I was fairly certain that, if I was called, one of the two lawyers — and I don’t know which one, because I don’t know the details of the case — would have killed me off in a hot minute.
“What do you do?” Oh, I’m an investigative reporter, news writer and opinion journalist for a national gay rights organization. Yeah. If the other media guy was killed off, I would DEFINITELY have been. As it turns out, they had their jury before me or my buddies were called up there, so the judge released us “to our next assignment,” at which point the bailiff told us in the hallway that we were released from service “for the next ten years!” (They don’t call us anymore than every ten years where I live.)
So we were done! At the end of a long day. I think the fact that I’m not there today is just luck of the draw, because we were called so late and it took so long to put this jury together. By the time we were out, all the other jury assignments had been made.
That being said, by the end of it, I wasn’t completely opposed to serving on that jury, sequestration and all. One of my questions to the judge, which I probably would have approached the bench to ask, as the defendant was in the room, was whether this was going to be a death penalty trial, because that is one thing I will simply not do, and I would have made it crystal clear that I would have hung that jury even if the defendant’s guilt was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt if the death penalty was on the table. Principles! I have them.
So anyway, that was my jury duty! I bitched about it all the way up to the day of, but I’m glad I did it, and I would encourage any of you who receives a summons to suck it up. Once the waiting was over, it was a fascinating, very American process to watch. There are serious flaws in the system — and yes, there is an inherent bias against minorities in our criminal justice system — but all in all, it’s the one we have, and so I figure we should all participate in it.
When I lived in New Orleans, a few people who were connected to the government told me to try to get out of jury duty in criminal cases because the friends and families of the accused came after jurors & threatened them if they ruled against the accused. I got out of jury duty.
Glad it went as well as it did for you Evan, and glad your back.
Jack, my whole point is that I really dont think it is possible to make a difference voting my conscience on a jury where ANYONE who, to use Evans example, knows anything about gay rights/life (in this appearantly gay related case) would be struck off. This happens in almost any case. High powered lawyers get evidence blocked on technicalities, and if you are not really well off, you will be defended by some county assigned public defender who is so overworked most of the time that he or she seldom makes a decent case for the defendent. And stop the sanctimoneous b******t. thanks.
I should add that I have a lot of African American and Latino relatives and friends who have been through the system, and yeah, that has colored my opinion of it.
It is the system we have. Its NOT as good as the system in most European nations where trained judges instead of 12 men and women picked at random (no, random..anyone who might conceivably be educated about something, like, once again, a gay rights activist, would be striken off a case, so, as the old joke goes, a jury is made up of 12 people who dont know anything especially relevant to the situation at hand, and who were not smart enought to get out of jury duty) decide the case based in years of experience and training in the law, and no, I don’t have patriotic bone in my body before you ask, so I dont have any love of the system just beause it the system of the nation I just by fate happen to hold a passport of.
If you feel like doing it Jack, great. But I want no part of it, and sure as hell are not going to be made to feel bad about it by you.
Evan, great post!
Gene, what are the odds that you would be on a case involving gay rights and be struck for that? I’m gay, been on juries, and that question has never come up. As far as being educated, I have a master’s degree and that has never gotten me kicked off a jury. Wouldn’t your African American and Latino friends and relatives want someone like you on the jury if they were facing bias. Your one vote would make the difference.
I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I know that’s not possible for a lazy, self-absorbed slug. I’m glad you don’t serve on juries. Our judicial system just got a little better!
I am going to end this now.
The whole point is that the system is corrupt, doesn’t work, and one vote WONT make a difference.
And Jack, name calling is a sign you have lost the arguement I should add.
It only takes ONE vote to keep someone from being acquitted. Did you not know that?
I should have written “convicted.”
And why do you vote in elections if one vote doesn’t make a difference? That typically makes a LOT less of a difference than a vote on a jury!
three more posts? really? Ok, fine. But enough already.
to answer your question, because I dont think…entirely anyway…those Dibold corp machines…I DO wonder! that they entire voting system is corrupted…i do wonder though, I must admit.
One vote on a jury, based on a system where evidence is manipulated, one person is shoddily represented, another can hire whole legal teams at outlandish cost, and juries are “struck” where anyone who knows anything about the topic is removed (be it gay rights in this case, or medicine, or as is often the case just gender or race) is a lousy system. I have no faith in it. Why should I, or you, anyone other 12 people picked (after CAREFUL screening to make sure the LCD is attained, have that much power over someones fate?) It may be the system of this country, but from what I have seen, and my family tell me, its so broken I have no qualms whatsoever about staying out of it.
some juries require, in civil cases, only a majority vote by the way.
I don’t get your logic at all. We have a jury system for a reason. Isn’t it much better for a Black person being tried for murder to have his fate decided by a jury that includes at least one Black person who could vote to acquit than by a racist white judge?
How much have you seen of the system? According to your posts above, you have cousins who are police, lawyers, court reporters, and paralegals AND you have minority relatives who have “been through” the justice system. Are these the same relatives? Are they corrupt police, lawyers, court reporters, and paralegals? I guess that could color your view of the justice system.