Jury Duty

[Chickenkeev]

Has anyone ever done it? I've never been called (thank fk!) but i'm curious as to what it's like. In one way it could be really interesting, and in another way it could be really traumatising. And, in the traumatising cases, is there any aftercare?

Are you allowed to take notes while listening to evidence? Or do you have to mentally retain it? I'd be awful at that.

I was called when I was about 23. Three weeks, sat for a couple of days in the waiting room then get put on a trial. The trial lasted about 2 weeks Inc deliberation. Historic SA of a child. Quite harrowing but would have been harder for me after I'd had my own dc so glad I was called before I started a family.

It was quite a while ago now, but I remember a big room full of sofas and desks and a pool table. Tvs on the walls. A canteen type bit at one end serving canteen style food or you could nip out to the little Tesco next door and buy your own lunches.

On the days before I was picked I just sat and read, and then after my trial was done I had 3 days left but they said I could just end then.

Yes. We then left our notes on our seats and they were stored by the relavent staff and put back out for us the next day.

I did mine about 15 years ago and if I was to do now I could prob bring my laptop and work from the court waiting room so I didn’t lose so much wages, there was a lot of waiting around waiting for cases, I sat on two in the two weeks one only lasted a day and the other was about 3 days. Obviously not all jobs can be done remotely though

Dont it twice.

Decent employers wil pay you normal wage, unless its crap.

Food, depends what your court is like, some have food inside, some not. Sandwich shop it was for me!
If your locked in the deliberation room, you are brought sandwiches.

Allowances arent great but I did well out of milage.

Found it very interesting in all cases - would do it again!
I'd do it full time tbh 😆

Be the spokesperson for the jury for the full experience!

This. From recollection, new people called up, will get called into a room, where you are advised what will happen during your time in court. He dos and donts etc. Can't remember if it was a judge or some other court member, who did this.

Jury service for my DH was a total disaster.

He believed that being called for jury duty was an incredible honour and despite the possibility of serving on a distressing case he was very much looking forward to it.

He spent 2 weeks sat in a waiting room or at home waiting to be called in. Unpaid. It cost him 2 weeks wages. He was only able to claim expenses back for the days he was actually sat in the waiting room. No expenses were paid for the time he sat waiting at home. He wasn’t able to go into work because he had been taken off the roster. He was discharged 2 days before the end of the required 2 week period.

Spiralling mortgage payments and cost of living meant we had to resort to credit cards to finance the shortfall. All in all we ended up with about 1k in credit card debt and we are still paying it off 6 months later.

I did it about a year ago.

I found it to shocking how little we invest in system. Is not like on tv. Building really old and process was badly organised/managed - not court staff fault as they were overstretched but lots of hanging around.

Also found prosecution and defence both quite poor at explaing narrative, lots of confusing and poor quality evidence. Blown up google maps which we couldnt read. And black and white images from cctv which were too blurry to see anything etc.

As others said lots of hanging around so bring a book or two. Got reimbursed travel and lunch up to a certain limit ( didnt need receipts for lunch so could bring your own and still get the money)

Yes, twice!

First time was in the mid 1970’s when I only just qualified. A pretty harrowing case but I have to say the jurors were treated very well and overall I found the experience very interesting.

Second time was just a few months ago at the same court but my God, how things have changed. No free tea/coffee - just manky water - unless you paid 60p for a teeny hot drink out of a machine. The waiting around was horrendous and even though I was selected we often didn’t go into court until lunchtime despite having been there since early morning. Then, with the case itself, 2 of us just weren’t convinced at all by the evidence and felt both the prosecuting and defence barristers appeared completely disinterested and bored.

We were completely stuck with deliberations at 8 - 4 so the judge said he would accept a 10 - 2 majority. The bullying that went on in the jury room to try and get people on side was just awful. However, both myself and another lady were sticking to our guns. The 2 younger members who originally were undecided were practically forced to back down so the defendant was found guilty and I understand he received a custodial sentence several weeks later.
Still not convinced he was guilty!

Following this latest experience I honestly think I would rather pay £1000 fine than do it again. 😡. Oh and it took well over a month to receive my full expenses and I had to complain twice as our initial paperwork said we would receive same within 7-10 days of completing jury service. Never again!

We fill out forms all the time (i'm Payroll) we have to calculate NET loss of earnings for our employee. We still pay the employee for not being here, the court then also pays the employee that NET value (plus any expenses) and the employee submits the invoice to me to have a deduction the following week/month for the value the court paid. So they don't lose out at all.

In fact, if you work somewhere that doesn't pay you for the time you are in court (2 weeks for example) you won't lose out as the court pays you the value you would have got. And you;re likely to get a small tax rebate too

I got the letter calling me on my 30th birthday. Wasn't quite what I was expecting in the post! The case I had wasn't traumatic thankfully. There was a fair amount of waiting around and being sent out then called back in again. Now I work in the criminal justice system I understand why but at the time I found it quite frustrating as you just want to get on with it. Its long days as your taking in a lot of information. I was only on the 1 trial but you can end up doing 2 in the time you are called up. If you ever get called take a book as you could spend 2 weeks doing nothing but waiting to see if you are even on a jury. It's not enjoyable but I think its important people do it and I think it gives appreciation for the process and challenges jury's face when making a decision on someone's guilt or innocents. If you are interested public galleries are always open so you can go along and watch. You don't get evicted for the legal arguments so gives you an insight into what happens when a jury isn't there too

That's really shit!

How come some people get called multiple times and others never? Is it just random pot luck?

I got called, but am disabled, so I called beforehand to make sure that I wouldn't have to climb stairs. They said there were no lifts, only stairs, so I was excused from duty.

@Morph22010 I disagree. Businesses should figure jury service into their business plan, exactly as they should figure in taxes, national insurance, maternity pay and sick pay. Businesses rely just as much on the justice system as the rest of society so should support it.

@fridaynight1

Be prepared for idiots not to declare they know a defendant. One jury got sworn in and after 3 days, a new jury had to replace the old one. A jury member didn't immediately notify the court clerks that he knew of one of the defendants. This is the kind of thing that will be covered in your briefing.

Magistrates courts don’t have jury trials. Nor did they in 2010

Would love to however I would hate to be selected for anything to do with child abuse, rape or animal abuse. The people that do jury duty for those types of cases deserve to be paid triple their wage

Then it would have been the Crown Court.

I’ve done it twice, first a murder case at the Old Bailey, then an assault by a police officer at another big London court. It was totally fascinating. Luckily guilt in both cases was very clear (to me) so I didn’t feel too conflicted about the decision making, and I was impressed by how serious and thoughtful the other jurors were.

No, but DM did it and had a horrendous terrorism case - had to be sequestered during trial.
Her take though was - all the sensible ‘good’ people often try to wiggle out of it and juries should be representing the population sinners teachers, professionals, unbiased people too…
Work colleague also did it and he has a really complicated fraud case that he had no clue what was going on most of the time and it dragged on for a year with him coming and going. He’d go in just to be sent home again etc He’s a work shy bastard though so loved it! He still got paid by our work.

No where near the same but I used to work with the lawyers of Christian charity, and every now and then they had claims of child sex abuse made against them. Reading the details of what happened was horrifying and it’s never really left me, so I can imagine having to sit through a lengthy trial that involves abuse would be extremely traumatic for the juror. Anyone who has been through that has my sympathies.

Side point - their first response was to argue and prove it never happened, rather than provide any emotional support for the victims. Made me realise I could never ever work in that area.

I read an entire book waiting for the potential jury to be called and then selected. Only for one witness to announce his previous crimes and the trial to be stalled and eventually cancelled. Wasted 2 days of my life on that. Very frustrating but also very interesting. We got 5 years off being called again.

Oh and from my time, jurors aren't accompanied outside when they leave the court. You have to be on your guard if you're sworn in.