Why have they set up jury duty to make it so dreaded?

Question

If serving on a Jury is such an important civic duty than maybe the courts should make it a better experience. Here in our local courthouse, they send the Jurors to this cold room in the basement to sit on hard plastic chairs. The room is FREEZING. Then you sit and wait, and wait and wait to see if you will be called into a courtroom. If you are picked as a juror, they pay you $15.00 a day and milage ONE WAY from your home to the courthouse (do they think you are not going home eventually?). How about some comfy chairs and a big screen tv. Even free coffee and donuts would be nice. Why don't they treat jurors better so that people don't try to avoid it so much?

Answer 1

Then the public will just complain when they raise the taxes for the free donuts and big screens and comfy chairs and for travel. A civic duty should not be a reward, it is a duty. Take the pride in the fact that people are allowed to have trials by jury and are not just thrown in jail.

- maybe the fact that people dread it so much is more a reflection of society than problems with the system. Yeah, the could make it better, but what couldnt be made better. its a sad thing where we have such a problem doing something that doesnt feel good physically.

Answer 2

Money.  That's why.  "free" coffee and donuts would have to be paid for by the taxpayers.  Your situation there sounds unusual...where I have been called for jury duty, we did have to wait, but the room was not cold.  THIS should definetly be corrected.  Perhaps, you , as a taxpayer in your community could go to the jury commisioner and volunteer to work together with court house maintenance to get the conditions improved.  As far as paying you to be on a jury and paying your transportation... I don't think they even owe us that...serving on a jury is our duty as citizens...and the more they "pay" to jurors, the higher taxes will be...has to come from somewhere.

Answer 3

Yes, jury duty can be a chore. You are not alone, most people dread it. When I worked in our state's court system, in Circuit court, we rotated processing jurors.  During the times I had it, I spent a great deal of time postponing jurors times to serve. Some folks would have it postponed two or three times.  When their names went back into the system, sometimes it would be a year or two before their name were ever selected again. About 40% of those who showed up for duty managed to be dismissed by the judge before they were ever in the pool to strike a jury.

Some states are better or worse than others.  Our state was pretty good. The accomodations were decent, and since our courthouse was on the square, downtown, they were fed very well at one of the several restaurants on the square.

Edit: In our state the fees paid to jurors did not come completely from taxes. Fees came from money paid for a trial by jury for civil cases. Criminal cases automatically get a jury trial, but in civil cases a party to the case has to "demand a trial by jury" in  a motion and pay the jury fee (in our state anyway).