Comments on: Hardships of prolonged jury service

By: Leland D. Davis

Leland D. Davis — Tue, 18 May 2010 15:56:01 +0000

How about adjusting the rules on who gets excluded so that lawyers routinely have to serve on juries, just like everybody else? That might help to make jury duty, in the long run, less onerous.

By: Bob Lipton

Bob Lipton — Mon, 17 May 2010 13:02:35 +0000

Miss Alkom does provide a link and I see where the juror who incited the decision to go to a jury-less trial indicated his contept at the entire proceedings as a waste of time. For anyone who doesn’t wish to follow the trail, the sergeant was being sued for some locker-room banter in which the complaintant was accused of being gay. The juror who raised a ruckus said “He can stand being shot at but he can’t handle this?”

Bob

By: Bob Lipton

Bob Lipton — Mon, 17 May 2010 12:24:00 +0000

I notice the article doesn’t mention what the trial was about. In my experience on jury trials, the lawyers often give you indications of what the major issues will be and ask you carefully nuanced question about whether you could ignore certain niggling issues that afflict the mind — like the first trial I was on the jury for, about where the defendant was for the six years between the alleged crime and the trial.

If I were on a jury and discovered that the trial was about something trivial, I might well express my disgust about involving twelve jurors, two lawyers, a judge and his staff in the issue, instead of paying the two dollars. But we will never know because THERE IS CRISIS.

Jury duty again at the beginning of June. Evildoers beware!

Bob

By: Jim Collins

Jim Collins — Mon, 17 May 2010 10:57:16 +0000

One person made a comment that I think might work. Start pulling juries from the unemployment roles.

A few years ago I was selected for Federal Jury Duty. I had to call a number each night to see if I had to report the next day. Had to do this for three weeks. During that time I had to miss a trip to Chicago to participate in a sports tournament that I worked for two years to qualify for. I never was told to report.