Jury duty

[Welcome Back Apathy]

Debate about jury duty. Ready, go!

 

I was thinking about it today...is it really a good thing? I mean, of course jurors find it a huge hassle. But is it worth the hassle? What are the benefits of jury duty for the defendant? For the court system in general? If you don't agree with it, what would you set up in its place?

[Emily]

I got a letter for jury duty a few months ago. I actually want to do it, as I'm fascinated by criminology and psychoanalytic theory, but I'm a full-time student, so they usually don't call us.

 

I think it's a good way of ensuring the trial is as fair as possible, being judged by a jury of your randomly selected peers. However, for many people, it's kind of a pain. I'm not sure how it works in other places, but in Ontario, if you need to travel or miss extended periods of work due to the trial, you're only reimbursed a fraction of your costs/missed wages (I think it's 60%, or something). So for someone living paycheck to paycheck, or someone who can't afford to miss work for an extended period of time, this could be a huge problem.

 

As far as benefits for the court, there's the aforementioned "fair trial" aspect. In a perverse way, I think it also alleviates the court system of a little responsibility as well. If the jury reaches a controversial verdict, the court system gets to deflect at least some of the blame for what may be considered an unfair sentence or verdict.

 

Though I do think it's more beneficial in terms of a fair trial, the way it's set up doesn't exactly inspire people to want to do it, if even for the aspect of having to miss work, potentially travelling in bad weather, disrupting personal plans/events, etc. If people were given more choice (like you got to select days/times of the year that would be more convenient for you) or there was better compensation, I think a lot less people would resent being called to do it.

[~Xandria]

Nicely put Emily. In the U.S, not reporting for jury duty isn't "technically" illegal, they just put your name back in to be selected for another trial. If you miss the trial a certain number of times, strict penalties result. I personally think that it should be mandantory to get a paid leave of absense from your work if you are called in for jury duty. I mean, it's only fair. Like Emily said, a lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck and missing one day of work can sometimes make or break you. Compensation for jury duty varies by county here. They are required to pay you no less than $6 and no more than $50 a day, which is pretty sad honestly, especially if you get stuck on the lower end of the spectrum. So as I said earlier, I believe that employers should be required to pay you when you have to leave for jury duty. Just my opinion though.

 

That being said... I just voted for the first time last year, so I have never been summoned. If I was and if I qualified then I probably wouldn't mind all that much. I'm sure I'd enjoy the experience.

[Spritzie]

Emily pretty much covered my thoughts.

 

I think it's both good and bad. I personally love law and am fascinated by it. (I actually worked at the District Attorney's Office when I was 18-20) But it tends to be such a hassle for so many people, that I almost think it makes it possibly unfair for those on trial because it's possible that those that don't really want to be there, will not pay attention, do whatever they have to, just to get it over with as quickly as possible.

 

I think it'd be great if you could basically volunteer instead of being pounced on for it. (Though that would probably bring up the whole issues of not having enough volunteers.) I live in Colorado, and apparently they at least partly take the names for the jury pools from the DMV records, not voter registration. (Both of my parents, as well as myself have NEVER been registered to vote, and all 3 of us have gotten jury duty summons.)

 

Thankfully, I didn't have to go in with mine. It would have been a huge ordeal since at the time, out of my husband and I, I was the only one working, and even if I had been paid the maximum, it would have been significantly less than I make at work because I work 12 hour shifts. If I had been required to appear, instead of being put on stand-by, then released completely, I would have tried to be excused due financial hardships.

 

I do think the fact that under certain circumstances you can be released, that can help with not ending up with jurors that can't give it their full attention. (I know my mom was released from a couple summons due to medical reasons, with a note from her doctor.)

 

Overall, I think there could be some changes that would be made that could improve the system. While voluntary entry into the jury pool would be nice, it's likely not practical. In place of that, I think that once you receive a jury summons, they should give you a certain time frame before your scheduled appearance to submit paper work that may, or may not excuse you from it. That way, if you can be excused for whatever reason, you don't have to waste a day taking off work just to be excused. But then of course, if you aren't excused, you have to appear.

[Welcome Back Apathy]

Well. Amusing coincidence. The day after I posted this, I got a jury summons. Well, I'm actually looking forward to it, despite everything I am about to say. I will enjoy it.

 

I'll try to be brief, but I'm me. I am 100% against jury duty. It's a system that completely screws over people who are economically disadvantaged--both jurors AND defendants. Isn't the reason why we have jury duty for the purpose of not screwing over the economically disadvantaged?

 

Jurors: My jury summons specifically says that inconvenience/distance is not a hardship. It actually is very much a hardship.

• Where I am, public transportation is pretty good, so most likely people can get to the courthouse. But where it's not so good, people without would have no choice but to hire a driver--at least on the first day, and then maybe they can work out a carpool with another juror if they are picked. Maybe. Taxis are expensive, yo. Even if you only have to go FIVE MILES a taxi trip would cost more than fifteen dollars--and that's only one way. Twenty or thirty miles is more likely--twenty miles costs almost $60. Wow. And that's not including calling a taxi to come pick you up--that costs extra. The government decides how much it will reimburse you for your travel--and they don't do it based on how much you spent on the trip.
• If you get paid on a salary, then you get to just make your salary instead of going to work. If you get paid hourly, however, you don't get to make your wages. Instead, you make money for jury duty. Jury duty pays well below minimum wage--the most it pays anywhere from what I can see is $40 a day. For eight hours, that's $5/hr. So the people who lose money are SPECIFICALLY the ones who are paid hourly wages. Looking at jobs that are salaried vs. hourly wages...it really tends to be the poorer jobs (minimum wage and not much above) that are hourly. So the richer people get to continue making all their money, no losses, and the poor people get screwed out of their money.
• Have young kids? Too bad. You have to shell out money for daycare. And no, they do not take this into consideration as a hardship.

 

But it's all worth it if it means it's fair for the defendant, right? The defendant gets a fair trial even if they are disadvantaged? Hardly.

• A jury of twelve laymen (or laywomen, whatever) is far less likely to know or understand the law. They are far less likely to understand the logic that goes into such a decision. Instead, they are more likely to listen to whoever is the more persuasive, charismatic speaker rather than actual facts.
• A good quality lawyer will be more persuasive and more charismatic. They might also be better at digging up laws to support their side, but they will be unable to change the facts. Thus, quality of lawyer makes an ENORMOUS difference to the decisions of laymen, but not nearly as big a difference as the decisions made by people who know the law, work with facts and logic, and understand how lawyers work.
• A good quality lawyer costs a lot of money.
• Therefore, juries will actually hurt poor people more than simply having judges hear the cases. If a defendant is innocent but can't retain a good lawyer, they might be put in jail for a crime they didn't do based on circumstantial evidence. Meanwhile, how often do rich rapists actually get punished?

 

If we could replace it with a system in which a social worker helps to preside over the case, I think the situation would be much better.

 

But replacing it with a system in which people voluntarily do jury service, I feel, would not solve the problem either. I had an idea where only unemployed people would do it and would be compensated for travel and for their work--but in either way, whether by volunteering or by unemployment records, there exists a bias. The point of a jury is to get a random sample of people, and if you only sample from people who volunteer to do it, you'll get only a certain type of people.

[kurokiwina]

I don't think it should be mandatory for employers to pay you in full when you are on jury duty, in the current economic climate a lot of employers simply cannot afford to do that. I think they could perhaps pay a small portion of your normal pay and jurors should also get the normal amount of compensation for their time.

 

I don't agree with the strict penalties for missing a certain number of trials. If a person has entirely valid reasons for missing several they shouldn't be punished. If something serious happens that means you simply cannot attend, it shouldn't count towards anything.

 

Students aren't normally called upon, but a lot of teachers are. I know there are less important things, but I've been in a situation where my teacher was called for jury duty in the two weeks before our final exam. The sub we had in place did not know about the content we had learnt and very few of us gained anything from her. Many people in the class were confused and I can think of at least four people who failed who shouldn't have, and several others who got far lower marks than they could have. Obviously there are worse things that could happen to people, but it was very unfortunate and I know for a fact that the teacher received very little compensation.

 

I know very little concerning what actually goes on in the courts. I do however feel that random people who know nothing about the criminal justice system aren't really capable of making such important decisions that affect people for the rest of their lives. I can say that my mother has a criminal justice degree and has worked with people involved in this area and disagrees with much of the jury system.

 

In my opinion, from things I've read and been told, changes need to be made, but there is no realistic alternative to the jury system.

[eloralestrange]

I think they should pay you 100% of your lossed wages. What if you actually have kids or animals you need to feed? Losing an apartment over jury duty would be terrible.