Whats your Jury Duty experience been like?

Question

What kind of case? How was jury duty for you? How did the decision process go on your case?

Answer 1

The first time I had jury duty it was a civil suit over a traffic accident.  Not very exciting, and the jury finally voted to award exactly the amount the defendent's insurance company had offered as an out of court settlement (learned afterwards of course).

Then I had three times on jury duty when I never was picked for a case, and finally an attempted murder trial where the prosecution had no evidence whatsoever linking the defendent to the failed try.

Answer 2

Municipal jury duty has always been a pretty long, boring day.

I have had one federal jury duty, involving the punishment phase of a murder case.. and that one was really very interesting.

Answer 3

I served Jury Duty and really enjoyed it. I learned a lot about the Justice System.  I sat on two cases while serving.  One was a malpractice suit that was settled before we deliberated.  The other was an Assault and Battery case where the Defendant was found guilty as charged.

Answer 4

I did 'jury duty' about two years ago, there was a jury pool of 300 people and we had to go into the city to the Magistrate courthouse, we were to be available for duty for at least two weeks, unless you are impanelled on a court case that will last longer than that initial two weeks.

During those two weeks we went through about ten juror selections and I was selected for only one that lasted about eight minutes as the accussed pleaded guilty (most of them do to save embarressment (their own), the ones who plead not guilty are the ones who are genuinly innocent or the victims are incapacitated in some way or are deceased). This happened to all the cases during that time, we seemed to get all sexual assult cases, mostly very old crimes regarding children that were now adults.

The most exciting thing that occured during the two weeks was we watched a panel get sworn in and after the detailes the accusations were read and the judge asked the jury if they were sure they could perform their duties and be impartial, one fellow stood up and informed the judge that he couldn't because he had actually attended the 'private boys' school' that the accused had been a teacher at who had molested young boys, the judge questioned him to establish that he did not attend the school during the time the accused had worked there, the juror stated that he wasn't but would have a hard time being impartial, (as there were always stories about abuse at the school)  (he was visably upset) the judge said well if you feel that strongly about it then he had to dismiss the entire jury panel and start the selection process again, which he did.

Answer 5

Doing my best trying to save people.

Answer 6

It was very interesting and enjoyable. I was amazed at how stupid the cops were on the case. The defense attorney was a boob. The prosecutor was very good. The judge was great. The victim was very believable. The case was simple sexual assault (touching and fondling). We gave the defendant the benefit of every doubt, but after an hour or so, we all agreed he was guilty.

Answer 7

Interesting question.  Thanks.  I love the process.  I think everyone should be on a jury at least once.  It teaches you the nitty gritty of our criminal justice system and the part the citizens of this country play in it.

My case was possession of narcotics (heroin) and a separate count of evading police.  After hearing all of the testimony we took an initial vote on each count and the possession count was about 50/50.  The evading police count was about 2/3 not guilty.  None of us believed the cop!  But a few thought it didn't matter if the cop lied or not and that by driving off the guy did attempt to evade.  Anyway, we started with the possession count and talked over all of the evidence and went through the judges instructions thoroughly.  We then voted again and only two voted not guilty.  They voiced their concerns so we requested to ask the judge a question and after he responded to our question everyone voted guilty as charged.  Then we had one hold out on the evading charge that we thought would end up either keeping us their forever or telling the judge we couldn't come to an agreement on that charge.  One person felt that it didn't matter that the law required this, this, and this to all be true to be guilty of evading.  He felt the guy was guilty by driving off.  But he wasn't guilty legally.  So we finally told the guy that we were going to talk to the judge about it and see if he could give him specific instructions.  I guess he got embarrassed to go tell the judge he didn't care what the law said, he thought the guy should be found guilty and he changed his vote to not guilty.

It was fun.  I enjoyed every minute of it.  But we had an interesting case that devled into minute details of the law.  The guy didn't actually have the heroin on his person and it didn't even really belong to him.  His friend hid it in his house so the cops wouldn't find it if they searched his house.  So he quite often used our guy's home to hide his heroin and shoot up.  The law was very clear that he owned the house and he was well aware that his friend was a heroin user and had seen him use in his own house, so he SHOULD HAVE been aware there was heroin in his home which legally made him guilty of possession!  Puts a whole new spin on letting your teens take your car out for a spin, doesn't it?  They get caught with drugs in it and you go to jail and get your car impounded!

Enjoy your experience and keep very open minded about others opinions and feelings and you will learn a lot.

Answer 8

I sat on a jury 8 years ago. Civil suit for 250,000 dollars. Lady slipped on a seto f stairs and busted her hip. She sued the the landlord and got paid.

This case was the landlord countersuing the tenant, an elderly g*y antique shop owner. Landlord was a major ****** and we found out he never fixed the leaky pipe that led to the lady slipping.

We all ruled in favor of the tenant, in that he wasn't liable for the ladys injury.

It was a great experience I thought, but it got dragged out for 2 and a half weeks. Judge yelled at me the 3rd day in for laughing at something the tenant said. (i was a lil immature at 19 years old)

Answer 9

its your civic duty...it might help get your brain out of the gutter...

Answer 10

A bit nerve racking at first but it was ok in the end.  Can't tell any details, I'd have to kill you. lol