Image via Wikipedia
I am doing my bit to preserve democracy today.
I have either a great record or a poor one when it comes to Jury Duty. I have been selected two out of three times I have been called. Once in an aggravated asssault trial that lasted nearly two weeks, and once for an afternoon in a mental competency trial. Both times we found for the prosecution.
So to tide you over, here are a couple of items about courts and jury duty from the Legal and Business Forms web site:
A man on trial in the Fourth Judicial district of Tennessee had previously pleaded “not guilty.” However, once the jury, eight women and four men, had been seated and the trial was under way, the defendant switched his plea.
“Why the change?” asked the judge, “Were you persuaded to plead ‘guilty’?”
“No Sir,” the man replied, “When I pleaded ‘not guilty’, I didn’t know women would be on the jury. I can’t fool one woman, so I know I can’t fool eight of them.”
And finally:
Just remember: when you go to court, you are trusting your fate to twelve people that weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty!
Help me get something out of this experience: Share your jury duty, courtroom or legal stories in comments!
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b4ad9d40-faf9-40a9-8afb-8dabc5149840)
on Oct 28th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Sorry…been called once in college..but I guess I was smart enough to get out. It was a fight, but I won!! I suggest you come down with a bad case of hemroids, and you can’t sit for long periods of time???
on Oct 29th, 2008 at 12:37 am
they gave us a questionnaire to fill out my first day (a thursday). one of the questions was “hobbies.” it was my first time at jury duty and i had no clue these questionnaires would be shown to every lawyer who drew you for his potential juror pool so i answered “drinking, women and sports (in no particular order).”
was late friday. everyone was hoping to get out and be told they were done. i get called for the last pool of folks to potentially be victims. i get called to the front of the room, “oh no, they want me.”
turns out it was a case about a three car accident. the lawyer for the cabby involved asked if there was anything that might cause me to “prejudge any of the participants.”
so i looked at him and said “i’m sure by now you’ve seen the hobbies listed on my questionnaire…” he began shuffling papers. “needless to say i’ve been in A LOT of cabs and have more than my fair share of stories, wanna hear some?”
with that he jumped up as if he were going to tackle me before i started telling he room a story and promptly dismissed me. i went downstairs where i was told it was 4 pm, i could go for the day and since it was friday was released from further jury duty obligation.
on Oct 29th, 2008 at 10:51 am
I am lucky, I have never had to do jury duty! The one time I was supposed to, I lucked out and had just moved, so I wasn’t living in that county anymore!