Foo - Jury duty impact

I have just completed three weeks of jury duty. It's an experience that I will never forget. Ever.

It is an open door to other people's lives, a foretelling of a future you may never want to exist in, a chance to re-write your own life before you get to live it. It is a true example of what-ifs.

My beliefs, thoughts and ideals have drastically changed.

For those who have ever served, how did it affect you?

i was once sent a letter to do jury duty, but i wasnt a canadian citizen at the time and i was still in high school, so i never had to do it...


welcome back siu....

Never have, but heard it sucks... Yawnsville, population 12 unlucky smucks

Sort of... I was a member of a court-martial. "Members" are the jury. But it's different in that you only sit one case and you're done. Mine was a capital case... a sailor had killed his wife. Really, our only decision was was did he intend for her to die or was it a crime of passion. We decided on the former based on the facts and the law we were instructed in.

It was trying duty, but I wouldn't call it life changing for me.

Dang sis, where was this trial... Lourdes?

Life changing? Hardly. Just a reaffirmation of my belief in the existiance of a pandering, bloated and in-effective justice system this country is burdened with.

i was once sent a letter to do jury duty, but i wasnt a canadian citizen at the time and i was still in high school, so i never had to do it...


welcome back siu....

Same here. :)

may I ask, what instructions did the judge give you prior to deliberation?

Life changing? Hardly. Just a reaffirmation of my belief in the existiance of a pandering, bloated and in-effective justice system this country is burdened with.

Hmmm.... interesting perspective. Let me ask you this: do you have an alternative to suggest?

No, I just like to b!tch... not think. :D

I've been on two. Enlightening, yes. Life changing, no.

The first was an assault with a deadly weapon with two defendants. The first addmitted to the crime and was just there to explain to the jury that the other defendant was just an innocent that he conned into driving. We fell for it and found the driver not guilty. But we found it strange that the driver was taken back in cuffs. We cornered the DA in the hall and he told us this was only one of many robberies that these two had commited and they were awaiting trial on the others, but since the driver didn't take the stand the prosecution couldn't tell us that. What a crock.

The second was a guy who got drunk at his wedding reception, slipped on ice outside the building and had a compound fracture of his leg just above the ankle. He was suing the building owner for medical bills, pain & suffering and permanent disfigurement. We gave him zip. Took us all of five minutes to deliberate.

SB

Hey Siu, hope you carried out your civic duty to the best of your ability.

I have been called three times and each time I fill out a personal profile. As soon as they see it and see that I am a registered professional engineer I am sent home as soon as they start dismissing jurors. I asked why once and a trail lawyer said that doctors, lawyers, and Engineers hang more juries than other professions.

My parents and myself have never been called to Jury duty (in Canada), I think that it is more rare there (less crime/trials).

Now I live in the USA (green card). The potential of having to serve Jury Duty is what makes me think twice about becoming a Citizen.

I have been called three times and each time I fill out a personal profile. As soon as they see it and see that I am a registered professional engineer I am sent home as soon as they start dismissing jurors. I asked why once and a trail lawyer said that doctors, lawyers, and Engineers hang more juries than other professions.


How about Scientists?

Welcome back, Siu. I served on a jury once. Unfortunately, it wasn't a very interesting case. After the prosecution presented their witnesses, the case got thrown out for lack of evidence.

I was on one once in my 20s. It was disheartening. An auto-theft trial where one guy pressed charges against his ex-buddy (mainly because the guy wrecked the car). Three different versions of the story, so we knew someone was lying on the stand, but just couldn't be sure who, so we had to acquit. Uck.

More recently, I was called for Federal Court jury duty; but right on the questionaire, one of the specific exmptions is being an active member of a volunteer fire dept. Lucky me . . . cross my fingers :).

Never been on jury duty and not sure if I'll ever qualify but just wanted to drop by and say HI, SIU!!!! Good to see you back here! :D

I've served on 3 juries: 1 civil, 1 municipal (traffic court), & 1 criminal. My experience as a juror hasn't changed a thing with regards to my view on life, other than to reinforce what I already knew -- that there are a lot of stupid people in the world.

I have to be a negative voice here. Have not a lot of stock in American jurispudence. Money gets far too many off the hook. My biggest beef. Don't trust the way evidence is manipulated and hidden from jurrors. Example. Recall a case on 60 Minutes, I think. ? Jury was in a state of rebellions about the presentation of evidence, after the case was over.
Fed's prosecuting some state sanctioned Marijuana grower for Marin County , Calif. California voters approved doctor assisted medical use of marijuana. Grower had a municipal contract. I voted for maraijuana medical assistance in a previous refenderum.
Federal Justice department sued this grower and ignored state law. The judge was in collusion with the Fed's and never allowed the fact the grower had a state contract to be allowed into testimony. He was convicted. Jurors were in a state of rebellion when they discovered this omission of evidence. Many actually stormed the judge's chamber in anger. Once convicted, not taking it back.
I do not trust the American legal system. No judge would want my skeptical nature on any jury nor would I be comfortable convicting anyone. This mentioned case is just one example out of many .

Glad to see ya back SBW !!!! http://www.freesmileys.org/emo/signs061.gif






http://www.freesmileys.org/emo/level1_don021.gif

OK time to try this again....forum went down on me when I last typed it, and lost it all :(

I had to serve two times...one criminal, one civil. The criminal case was life altering, but in a very messed up way....I still have nightmares over the pictures I had to see. The Civil case I didn't learn anything from, it just made me feel a sorrow I never felt before....that case was too f--ked up to even put into words, let alone feel "good" about making a verdict at all.

The Criminal case was a hit and run DUI/Vehicular manslaughter of a 15 year old child. I was 20 at the time. The really messed up part is how it happened.

The poor child was hit at an estimated speed in excess of 50mph (this was a 35 zone), and the child got stuck in the wheelwell, but had his torso under the front wheel...thus his chest was slowing the truck down....the ******* in the truck just kept putting ont he gas, draggging this poor kid into the pavement for four blocks, where the truck's engine blew up, and the driver ran on foot. He was found 5 hours later with a tremendous amount of aolcohol and cocaine in his blood.

I'll never forget the photos we had to see....that was by far the most disgusting thing I ever seen...not from a gore standpoint, but because of the sheer suffering this innocent kid had to deal with before death, because this prick had to drive intoxicatd, sped, and then flee the scene instead of calling the EMTs. Turned out he had two prior DUI convictions. That was a very open and shut case...the verdict was guilty. Even though it was against the rules to talk about sentencing, we did ask the judge to consider giving him some kind of extended rehab if possible when the sentencing begins. Honestly, I have a hard time even talking about that case...the pictures of that poor kid still haunt me.

That was also the day I quit street racing.

The civil case. That was a wrongful death case. The parents had a 2 year old child that they claimed died due to a doctor's negligence. What happened, was a prior place gave an initial wrong diagnosis....the kid got worse, the parents took her to a different ER...the new ER was told the wrong diagnosis from the parent, and worked based on that, but never contacted the other hospital, like they asked. The child died later that night of Meningitis.

It was a very messed up case, and I really did want the parents to win...but the burden of proof was not on their side. It seemed the Doctor did everything he could within reason to treat her...he did have proof of contacting the hospital, just they failed to reply back, and when they did, it was too late. It was the sum of a bunch of tiny white mistakes that added up into an epic tragedy. I had a hard time keeping my compusure...I really wanted to cry...and for me, that's pretty rare.

All that taught me, was the world is a ridiculously cruel place at times.

I had city court jury duty about 6 weeks ago. What ticked me off more then anything was over half the summoned citizens never showed up, so those of us that did had to hear more cases then we wanted to. I only heard one, as the other five were settled before we were seated, but the one I heard was a little disturbing.

The case appeared to be a simple DUI with a USMC DI. We watched a 45 minute long video of the scene, but we never saw a drunk man. The DI was arrested solely on a poorly exicuted pen/eye test. The cop lied on the stand about how the test was performed when compared to the tape. Then another cop lied about the bad brakes the defendant's vehicle had. To really tick us the jury off, the city attorny tried to use his Marine Corps training against him!

Yeah, we aquitted him. No probable cause for arrest.

Thank you everyone for all of the "welcome back" greetings. Seems as if foo has changed, though....

Catatonic, thank you for sharing your story. Just remember that what you went through for this kid was the best that could ever become of it. Good job.

Maybe you and I should get together for some coffee and cry over our cases together.

Yeah, it was pretty messed up....we almost had a mis-trial because one juror was having serious problems handling it....a vietnam vet...the photos were that messed up.

I figured that was the best outcome....I just wished that something was done with this guy before this happened...he seemed genuinely sorry for what he did, that's why we all reccomended the Judge consider some kind of extended rehab...if he was as sorry as he looked in there, what he did will haunt him for a lifetime.

Yeah, foo is quieter now, because the forums are in a state of chaos right now. Joe got a new server, and is currently tweaking and fine-tuning the new Vbulletin software (what the forums run on), so things are a bit too "unstable" to some people right now....like my previous post...I typed it up, and it was lost hte first time due to a glitch :(

Oh well, the server overall is behaving far better than it did before. Someday I want to be able to get Joe a nice bag of Coffee for all the good work.

Life changing event. Moving to Houston and finding a whole population of peop[le who are in capable of enunciating or speaking proper english. In capable of forming a complete sentence that exceeds SVA if they are capable of getting a complete sentence out. Watching a crowd of people and seeing nothing but despair and hopelessness.

I would think that jury duty would only be an eye opening experience if you didn't study psychology, watch cops or rescue 911 or go through the world wondering what would drive a cop to pull a corner, look directly at you and then try to run you over, why did that person just go through the intersection staring straight at you. etc

i was on a mock trial jury once......high school kids suck at being lawyers.

Can't we just agree high school kids suck period :p I don't know very many high school kids who are a) both intelligent and bright or b) care about whatever they are doing, let alone both

Can't we just agree high school kids suck period :p I don't know very many high school kids who are a) both intelligent and bright or b) care about whatever they are doing, let alone both

But they believe themselves to be a and think themselves to not be b because it's stupid and beneath their awesome and unique intelligence.