Bloody jury service

[fussychica]

In all my years at work, where I would have been paid by my employer, I was never called for jury service. I'm now retired and I've been called right in the middle of the summer. Although I don't mind doing the actual thing getting there will be a nightmare, (I dont drive) and the subsistance doesnt even cover 2 drinks let alone lunch. I dont have an actual holiday booked but had quite a few plans for this part of the summer. I know its my civic duty but Im a bit pissed off about it as if you couldnt tell

and police officers be police officers

and solicitors be solicitors

I do think vetting would be desirable.

Dos - but normally one is allowed to earn money to buy one's lunch. If the power to earn is suspended by a duty it is right that you are given a basic subsistence to live on while undertaking the duty

Most European countries have juries only in the most serious criminal cases (eg those which may result in 15+ years in prison).

Similar to the pool of Pro Jurors idea, I wondered whether it should be possible to put your name forward to volunteer. So someone like me, no children, work for the government, not self employed - would be happy to do it, but never been called.

Granted, you'd have to weed out the weirdos who just want to do it for the wrong reasons, but presumably they'd have to weed people out anyway with the random system we have now. At least with a voluntary system, there would be less messing about trying to find someone who was available.

So they would end up with a pool of 'willing jurors' to call upon

There is no weeding of weirdos now. Anyone can be called and will have to serve unless they are section ably mentally ill, employed by the CPS or a member of an exempt profession (of which there are now v v few).

colleague of mine rocked ujp to do it to find the MOST educationally challenged kid we had ever taught there.
he left school after setting fire to a notice board,
ON

A

JURY

My job takes me into court quite a bit. A couple of years ago, I was present for day 1 of a trial at a sheriff court (Scotland).

All those called for potential jury selection initially sat in the court before selection began. The usher told me that approximately half those called up had attended court.

I jokingly asked whether the absentees could expect a knock at the door/fine for non attendence. The response was no, the court service doesn't have the resources to go chasing up all the non attendees, and that nothing would happen to them.

I don't know whether this is any way typical of how other areas deal with the issue, but that's the response I got from someone supposedly "in the know."

My JS letter arrived by standard post, it wasn't registered mail. Speaking to a less scrupulous friend, he said, "unless it's registered, just ignore it. If there's any comeback, say you never received it." I didn't do that though.

Is it still true that id you dress in a suit and carry a copy of the Daily Telegraph that the defence will object to you?

carry a copy of the Daily Telegraph that the defence will object to you?

Anyone would object to you then, surely??

Jury selection is American Afaik

I'd love to do jury duty and luckily work in the nhs so would get paid leave I think. However to people saying get insurance this just highlights how ridiculous the situation is... why should you have to fork out money to protect your earnings on the off chance you get called up... the system shouldn't be set up in a way that people will potentially be financially worse off by doing their civic duty. No wonder people don't want to do it.

Pipbin can you please provide some proof that the judges in the non-jury legal system here in the Netherlands are or have been corrupt? I will help help you-there is no such proof. And jury members can and do have pressure applied to them by defendents and their associates.

Why do people think you should Evdn get subsistence ? You'd have to eat at work

If I go to work in my office I can help myself to as much tea and coffee as I like (within reason) for free and I take my own home cooked leftovers to warm up in the office microwave. Cost = pence.

When I did jury service I could pay about a pound a cup for the cheapest nastiest type of machine hot drinks and pay about a fiver for low quality mass catering slop or a salad or sandwich chilled to within an inch of it's life so inedible.

There wasn't time to go out to find anything else and I think on the suggestions upthread (McDonalds, Greggs) the chance of me staying awake in the afternoon would have been close to zero.

That's really scary Blondegirl73 but I'm not surprised. So many even normal looking people have very suspect views and prejudices. They walk amongst us! Was there anyone official pulling them up on things and making sure the jury was as unbiased as possible?

"So what's the alternative? Should there be a pool of trained, vetted (and paid) jurors?"
Actually, I don't think that's a bad idea Beryl. They could still recruit people from all walks of life, only those people would have to proved they were capable of unbiased, analytical thought and put prejudices aside. I don't think you necessarily have to be successful or highly educated to have those qualities either.

Pipbin can you please provide some proof that the judges in the non-jury legal system here in the Netherlands are or have been corrupt
So the Netherlands isn't corrupt. Does that mean that every non jury system in the world isn't corrupt?

If I go to work in my office I can help myself to as much tea and coffee as I like (within reason) for free and I take my own home cooked leftovers to warm up in the office microwave. Cost = pence.

Many work places don't provide free tea and coffee and you can take a sandwich or a salad. No one is making you buy a McDonalds.

"Was there anyone official pulling them up on things and making sure the jury was as unbiased as possible?"

WhatALoad - no, only other jurors. When you deliberate, you're locked in a room! We had to give our usher all our phones/iPads/laptops etc and they were locked in a cupboard. Then we were shut in too! If we wanted the usher, we had to ring a bell and he came. If we wanted to ask the judge something, we wrote a note.

Surely most companies pay you for being on jury service? Don't they have to? I can't imagine they'd have a leg to stand on if they refused. I'm also fairly sure if you're a sole trader or can't get away from work you can be excused or at least defer. I was talking to a dad at my son's swimming when I was doing mine and he said he was called up and didn't do it because he's a personal trainer.

I got paid expenses - I didn't spend all of it, so at the end I got some money paid into my account. My travel would have been paid for, but I've got a season ticket anyway.

Surely most companies pay you for being on jury service? Don't they have to?

Maybe. No.

As I said, it's obvious jury duty isn't taken very seriously by the powers that be (although it's heartening to see it is taken seriously by the wider public).

My employer explicitly covers jury duty as a paid absence. However I have worked in smaller firms where it's unpaid absence (or uses up holiday).

So people think it is a good idea to put something as important as the verdict of a crown court case in the hand of non-expert amateurs? I have much more faith in professional judges who are much more attune to tricks of lawyers and who are much more vetted than just someone picked at random from the electorate.

I believe a company has to grant you leave for jury service, but this can be unpaid.

Ordinarybloke, as someone working in the justice system i believe that juries should be legal professionals that actually considered the evidence, not how particular witnesses come over or the tricks of highly skilled, manipulative barristers

I support jury trial - trial by your peers. It works well. Obviously in many court cases, all those I do, no jury is used but that is business law. For criminal law except perhaps the more complex fraud cases I am glad we have jury trial.

I have jury service starting next week. My employer won't be paying me - I will be claiming the allowances that are provided.

However, on realising that this would leave me severely out of pocket, my employer has kindly agreed to top up my salary.

So I won't get paid for my two weeks, but will get a 'top up', the rest I will need to claim from the courts so they'd better pay up. God help us if it turns into a 9 week trial as he won't pay me for that and while we can afford to take the hit I suppose, I absolutely do not see why I should have to.

No-one should be out of pocket for doing a civic duty, and I do not believe it should come down to a business to subsidise this either. Why should they? They pay me to do a job.

Indeed. Unless you are one of 140,000 workers at Royal Mail or one of even more at the NHS, it is hard to subsidise a member of staff. Eg it might be a nanny whose pay is already about 100% the pay of one of the couple. With maternity leave the state pays the employer of a nanny back the SMP you pay her which is fair enough.