Jury Duty

I am 59 years old and other then when I was in the military I have always lived in the same county where I was registered to vote.  This is the first time I got a summons for jury duty and it's the week after a holiday, the week of July 6.  The county I live in is one that requires people to go every day and sit all day waiting when they have jury duty.  Some counties in Ohio require showing up the first day and they give a juror number.  People can call in to an automated number and the system tells them if they have to come in but Franklin County doesn't do that.  Most people who can call in don't have to go back after the first day.

:cross: that you don't have to wait forever (and don't get chosen unless you're interested in serving). My mother was constantly getting called up for jury duty, while the rest of the family never got more than one summons. It was weird.

I am hoping it's not all day every day.  I would think that by lunchtime they would know if they actually needed jurors.  This is government though, never do things the easy efficient way. 

I have known people in the past who seem to always be getting a summons.  It is odd.  I just hope that I don't get caught up in that.

That's how it is here, too. You go in the morning and sit there all day to see if you get picked or not. It's a huge waste of time, IMO. The last time I had jury duty was 6 years ago. Unfortunately I did get picked and had to serve.... once a week for 6 months on a grand jury

I remember a number of years ago, it was during the trial of the au pair taking care of a baby that died, there was a movement going on about professional jurors.  That was because of the large amounts of technical info and dualing experts.  I don't think that would pass muster as far as being constitutional.  The jury is supposed to be the defendants peers.

I served as foreman of a jury almost a year ago. Here, they send you the summons and you have to start calling the night before it starts to see if they call your number. You don't need to go in until or if they do. The case that I was on was a felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and in my opinion, should never have gone to trial at all. The young man who was accused had gotten into an argument with a neighbor about an allegedly stolen debit card. He was accusing the neighbor of taking it from his car so he went to his house to confront him. They were arguing and another neighbor got involved. This man is much older and bigger than the accused. He claims that the kid pulled a gun on him. The kid that was arguing with him about the card was at that point "so scared that he took off running and in the process ran right out of his shoes." Really. Here's why I thought the whole thing was ridiculous and should have never went to trial

The man that "ran out of his shoes" was not called to testify. He was only mentioned by the ADA

No gun was ever found

The only other person called to testify that there was a gun was an elderly woman who was a tenant of the accuser. She admitted that she was almost legally blind and could not confirm that the defendant was the man that was involved in the incident with her landlord/roommate. She also could not confirm that she actually saw a gun in ANYONE'S hand. Just that she saw "something dark in his hand"

The accuser has known the defendant all of his life and was involved in a relationship with his grandmother for years before an ugly breakup not long before the incident

The police officer that was the first to respond to the incident did not feel that there was grounds to arrest the defendant after speaking to all parties involved and he was only arrested the following day after the accuser got angry and went back to the police and insisted.

The whole thing was so insane. Did we think the kid was completely innocent? No but how did they expect us to convict this kid of assault with a deadly weapon when no weapon was ever found and no one other than the accuser could testify that they ever saw a gun in his hand at all? It ended up taking a total of 2 days. One day to pick the jury and one day for the trial.

Good luck!

My husband and I are both overdue for jury duty. There were recently two high profile cases here in Massachusetts (Marathon Bomber and Aaron Hernandez). I was thrilled when both juries were seated and we didn't get called. I didn't want any part of either.

I have been called a few times. One time I was seated on a jury for a drunk driving trial that took almost a week. The other times the people settled and we were released around lunch time. Others times I've had to call the night before and did not have to show. I did have to go to Boston once for federal jury duty. I was released after lunch for that as well. My husband has served on a jury quite a few times.