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I may be weird (may be?) but I am excited about having jury duty this week. As a civics teacher, I can see from the inside what I'm teaching and be a role model for my students.

Jury duty is awesome and aweinspiring. Been on a murder trial and multiple dui trial. It's an honor.

Depending on what sort of trial it is and if you're in the front row for hypotheticals, and you're picked, you'll be in your logical mode.
Even tho the murder trial was a slam dunk we all cried because the guy went away for 40 years. That was with a jury pro and not pro death penalty.
It's hard.

Don't be this guy:

I spent years wishing to be called, and then assumed I would be dismissed for working at a newspaper, but when I was finally called, I was indeed seated. We spent a day in jury selection, and then our case was dismissed the next day before opening the trial, but the DA and judge stayed in the hall and answered all of our questions. Learned a lot.

I received a summons for federal jury duty a couple of years ago. Since I'm a contractor, being chosen would have cost me thousands of dollars. Fortunately, I found that being 70 or older is an automatic exclusion.

In Fulton County, jury duty is one day or one trial. If you are called for a jury that day, you serve for the length of the trial. They give you a group number for the day you are supposed to report. Then, on the evening before that day, you call a recorded message which tells you which, if any, groups are to report, based on the trials they have scheduled for the next day. If you're not called to go in, you've satisfied your requirement. (Once, I was in group 2 and I though sure I'd have to go in, but they only told group 1 to report.) If you do go in, you sit in a large room with a couple of hundred other people. They played "informational" videos about how important jury duty was and what we should expect. (As a lawyer, I already knew this.) Every so often, they would call a group of 10-20 or more people to report to one of the courtrooms for a trial and then, sometime in the early to mid-afternoon, they would tell everyone else to go home.

I was actually called into a courtroom once out of about a half-dozen trips downtown (I'm exempt now for being over 70). It was a trial for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. My guess, based on what I heard, was the issue had to do with the circumstances under which the police found the gun in the defendant's possession, and the trial was a formality to preserve the defendant's right to appeal. In any event, they came to a plea agreement midway through jury selection and we all went home. (They called about 50 people for that jury pool.)

One of the logistical problems they will face with the Trump trial is the large number of jurors they will have to call for the days in question as the various attorneys will be striking many of the people in the pool for various reasons.

I loved both of my jury duty calls, since they both lasted only two days before being dismissed, gave me two paid nights off, and rolled right into my usual Wednesday/Thursday weekends...

Now they only call you if they need you, and the one time I got selected for that, I just got told to stay home. Bah, I'd love to be on a jury just once....

lb13

I will most likely never get to sit on a jury, but many thanks to those who do.

And my week of civic duty ends after one day. Apparently there was only one case on the docket, they went through jury selection (is that called void dier?), picked 12 jurors and 3 alternates and sent the rest of us home. I’d venture to guess that I was the only one dismissed who was disappointed.

kroxquo wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 06, 2024 8:41 am

And my week of civic duty ends after one day. Apparently there was only one case on the docket, they went through jury selection (is that called void dier?), picked 12 jurors and 3 alternates and sent the rest of us home. I’d venture to guess that I was the only one dismissed who was disappointed.

That would be me, too. I've served on two juries, both civil. I'd like to server on a criminal trial jury at some point. I haven't been called to jury duty in many years. I'm not sure how active the trial courts are in Parker County. In Harris County the mix between eligible jurists and general population is probably lower and the crime higher, so more likely to get called there.

kroxquo wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 06, 2024 8:41 am

And my week of civic duty ends after one day. Apparently there was only one case on the docket, they went through jury selection (is that called void dier?), picked 12 jurors and 3 alternates and sent the rest of us home. I’d venture to guess that I was the only one dismissed who was disappointed.

It’s voir dire, which means “to speak the truth” in old French.

kroxquo wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 06, 2024 8:41 am

And my week of civic duty ends after one day. Apparently there was only one case on the docket, they went through jury selection (is that called void dier?), picked 12 jurors and 3 alternates and sent the rest of us home. I’d venture to guess that I was the only one dismissed who was disappointed.

Voir dire - "speak the truth"

tlynn78 wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 06, 2024 9:00 am

kroxquo wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 06, 2024 8:41 am

And my week of civic duty ends after one day. Apparently there was only one case on the docket, they went through jury selection (is that called void dier?), picked 12 jurors and 3 alternates and sent the rest of us home. I’d venture to guess that I was the only one dismissed who was disappointed.

Voir dire - "speak the truth"

Stupid spell check. I would have gotten voir right, anyway.

kroxquo wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 06, 2024 11:02 am

tlynn78 wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 06, 2024 9:00 am

kroxquo wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 06, 2024 8:41 am

And my week of civic duty ends after one day. Apparently there was only one case on the docket, they went through jury selection (is that called void dier?), picked 12 jurors and 3 alternates and sent the rest of us home. I’d venture to guess that I was the only one dismissed who was disappointed.

Voir dire - "speak the truth"

Stupid spell check. I would have gotten voir right, anyway.

It tried to correct me, too, although if I'd seen Jarnon's response in time I could have just not