I just learned this a couple months ago and I was shocked that people with no legal education are pulled from their jobs and serve in juries for very little amounts of money. So I wonder how you feel about this duty? Do you have any interesting personal stories that you'd like to share here? What do you feel when you see that mail? Some people say I trash it and nothing happens is that true?
39 comments
How did they do juries in your country?
I have a PhD and my father was a cop. So I am never getting selected for a jury, even though I get called for jury duty every year. Just got a summons last week in fact!
You cannot just trash it. You will get in trouble if you do
It should be illegal to pay people less than their daily wage.
It sounds weird from the outside, but it’s basically regular people deciding cases so it’s not just lawyers and judges running everything, and no, ignoring it isn’t a great idea.
I’ve been fortunate to never get selected, but I don’t look at it positively. I don’t make much money and almost every time I got a letter I was working overnights, so it would have been a massive inconvenience and a financial burden
IMHO, having served on a jury, I find it restored my faith in people. Regular everyday working-class adults from all backgrounds bring together a lot of wisdom and experience.
There are pros and cons to having normal people with no legal education serving on a jury as well as only having legal professionals on juries. In the end, I view it as akin to having civilian authority over the military – it’s an overall good thing.
the jury system is the last defense against a politicized government targeting its enemies.
the inability of the federal government to imprison the sandwich guy is solely because a jury of ordinary people refused to indict him and then refused to convict him.
if i get a jury duty letter, I go to jury duty.
I’ve served on criminal juries in the United States a couple of times. It’s common sense.
Sometimes it’s easy, but a serious crime can take a couple of days.
The judge will give you a summary and instructions, and that helps.
But you never know what happens when twelve regular everyday people get together behind closed doors.
In one case the Commonwealth thought it had a slam dunk, but he didn’t prove his case to two people out of twelver, and those two people persuaded the rest of us that the case was not proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
It’s not the end of the world having to be on a jury and it’s just mostly common sense. The judge helps a lot, letting you know at the end of the trial what you can think about and what you must not think about.
It’s just a part of being a citizen.
Just to clarify for you, it’s not that crazy that juries are not legally educated. Their job is not to answer any questions of law–that is the judge’s role.
Instead, they are there to resolve questions of fact. No matter how much evidence there is in a case, there will always be some ambiguity about what actually happened. Once all the evidence has been presented, it is the jury’s job to decide what they think happened. Whose version of events they find more credible, if any.
Jury duty is a pain in the ass and also one of the few things protecting the country from raw tyranny right now. It’s called duty for a reason. And depending on the state, evading jury duty can lead to contempt of court charges and serious consequences.
It’s every American’s civic duty and I think more people should take it seriously, it’s a huge part of our justice system. That being said, they should pay more than they do now.
Why would you need a legal education to serve on a jury? The point is of our legal system is that you are being judged by a panel of your peers, as opposed to just a judge. The judge and lawyers are the ones who need to know the legal system, but they simply present the evidence to the jury in an understandable way. At that point, it is up to the jury to determine the validity of the facts, and if the accused party can be considered guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
It is definitely true though that many people find it annoying to be summoned, because it often involves a lot of waiting around at the courthouse to see if you even get selected. The compensation is also very low, like $20-50 a day, which obviously is lower than most daily wages. Definitely you can’t ignore it though, that’s illegal and would result in fines or worse.
It’s supposed to be a jury of your citizen peers, not a group of state sanctioned experts. This reduces the chance for biases. While it’s imperfect, I can’t think of a better way to do it.
I was on a jury and on a fairly intense case everyone took it very seriously and we tried our hardest to come up with the right verdict. I was seriously proud of what we accomplished. It really boosted my faith in humanity.
I was a juror on a murder case. It was the most meaningful experience of my life.
It’s your civic duty.
I’m from Australia, but we also do jury duty. I’ve been selected four times and have never been but I have always given a reason, obviously because you can’t just not go and they’ve always accepted my reason. I think jury duty is great. Helps give a fair trial. I think the only thing they need to change is how much someone gets paid.
It is a civic duty, and one of the conditions of having a fair court system. When you are falsely accused of a crime, you will be happy to be tried by your peers rather than a singular high and mighty judge.
Do I like having to potentially sit on a jury? Not really but I will do it if called. Do I like the alternative which would be my fate would be left up to the decision of a judge that may or may not follow the law, may or may not pay attention to the evidence, may or may not have a legal background themselves (some states elect judges and don’t require prior experience to run)
No thank you. I’d rather be judged by a jury of peers that are given the jury instructions (listing of applicable laws) than a power trippy judge any day.
The jury is there to establish fact (ie guilty/not guilty), not details of the law. That’s provided by the judge.
We have a jury of peers to prevent corruption. It’s much harder to corrupt a bunch of literally random civilians than it is to corrupt a few key government officials.
Regarding pay, every company I’ve ever worked for paid you in full for your jury duty time.
Trial by one’s peers comes from Magna Carta and is one of the first constitutional protections for ordinary people against arbitrary justice by the state. As the USA has an Anglo legal system, it is great that they have this in place too.
In practice a lot of people continue to be paid normally by their jobs but I agree that this should be universal.
It’s an imperfect system but it protects the accused, you can waive your right to a trial by jury if you think that a judge will be more fair.
I served once, I genuinely thought that we tried to make the correct decision.
That’s the point, your are judged by your peers.
I have never been selected for the actual trial, so far I just sit half the day in the waiting room until dismissal. It is my duty as an American to show up though.
Spent 3 months on a grand jury giving up 1 full week a month to serve. In the US, the grand jury is essentially a check on prosecutors to ensure they have enough evidence to proceed to trial. The grand jury is not establishing innocence/guilt.
It was fascinating. I learned a lot about our criminal justice system that I wouldn’t have known had I avoided it.
My enployer paid me my normal rate while I served on jury duty so I wasn’t really out anything. I certainly would feel differently if I wasn’t being paid. The wage for jury duty was basically enough to cover parking and lunch.
I feel jealous. Cause I’ve never had a chance to serve on a jury even though I’ve been registered to vote for 40 years.
I was the foreman on a drunk driving trial and it was rough. Some of the folks weren’t too bright and had trouble following but ultimately we all got to where we needed too.
Yeah, jury duty is a pain for people, but it’s so essential as part of the checks and balances in our system.
It’s the citizens’ opportunity to have a say in the justice system.
First, the primarily job of a jury isn’t do engage in any legal analysis. The primary job of a jury is to *find facts* — what happened and when, and who did it? Honestly, that’s WAY easier when there’s a group of 6, or 9, or 12 people. People notice things differently; people have different experiences. As a group, it’s a lot easier to figure out what the truth is than when it’s just one person.
Then, there’s a secondary value of involving regular citizens in the justice system.
On the criminal side, it prevents the government from colluding with itself to engage in tyrannical prosecutions, and, in some cases, sentences. It prevents political attacks by the ruling party against an opposition. (Or, if it happens, it’s out in the open and the people know about it and can do something about it.)
On the civil side, it makes sure that the community has a voice in what a reasonable amount of damages.
I think many people not from a place with juries misunderstand how juries work. They don’t have to know the law–the law is given to them by a judge (usually agreed to by the lawyers in the case). Then they apply the facts to the law to reach their verdict. While some states have “advisory juries” for sentencing, and juries have to decide whether the death penalty is appropriate or not, in 99% of all cases a judge is responsible for criminal sentencing, based upon either a formula in law, or the judge just sentences the defendant to a range, with a parole board to later decide how long the defendant serves.
And, when the verdict doesn’t fit with the law, the judge can (within some range) modify the verdict or order the case retried.
So it’s not like each citizen is expected to be a mini-lawyer.
Yeah, the jury system is imperfect. Juries can sometimes focus on the wrong thing. A big group can sometimes get bullied by a strong personality. They can have bias–either unconscious or explicit–that affects their decision-making. They can use their verdicts to send a political message rather than decide the facts of the case before them (you can decide if that’s a feature or a bug). And they can sometimes act irresponsibly. But, you know, so can judges. We *hope* that judges are fair, impartial, without motivation, but they’re flawed humans too. You hope you get more professional decision-making with a judge, but that’s not always the case. And, when everyone wants to, they can waive their jury trial rights and have their dispute settled by a judge.
Having a legal background is one of the quickest ways to get yourself disqualified from jury duty because neither side wants the jury to know the sorts of things that were denied access to being shown in court.
I have only been called for jury duty once, and I was selected as an alternate (basically, I had to attend and pay attention to the entire trial, but I could not participate in deliberation unless one of the other jurors had to drop out for some reason).
It was two days of court and a hassle for my employer (they had to kind of scramble to cover my tasks), but I found the process quite interesting and important. My employer paid me for the time I missed, so I wasn’t concerned about losing income, and everyone on the jury took their role very seriously. It was a tough case with essentially no hard evidence, but I am confident that the jury ultimately made the correct decision.
Our Constitution calls for trials to include a jury of your peers, hence the obligation.
I’ve been selected for jury duty somewhere around 5-7 times. I’ve never served on a jury though.
I think the purpose is meaningful, but it’s become a bit of a joke where people shrug off the duty because it’s a financial hardship for most people.
At least in NJ and PA, you cannot throw a summons away. They can serve you a bench warrant for your arrest if you ignore the jury duty request. You are compelled to respond.
It’s worth noting that in the US you have a Constitutional right to a jury trial for criminal proceedings (apart from minor offenses) but you can waive this right and choose to have your case decided by a judge (bench trial). There are limited cases where it may be advantageous to have a bench trial but overall a jury trial is better for the defendant.
If the prosecutor cannot explain the facts of the case; why, in complex cases, the action is a crime and why the person should be found guilty to a bunch of people without any legal education, then the individual should be found not guilty. It’s certainly not perfect, but it is a check on potential government bias/overreach. Additionally, a trial by jury of ones peers is codified in the US constitution.
I was called for jury duty and excused because I had a vacation booked during the trial dates. I would be willing to do it if called again.
OP – if you find this topic interesting, you should watch the movie 12 Angry Men (released in 1957). It’s about 12 typical unremarkable men selected for jury duty and their deliberations over a serious crime. It’s one of the all-time great American films, and different attitudes on jury duty are relevant to the plot—some of them take it very seriously, some just want to get out and go home, some let their biases come in and others try to be more impartial, etc.
Personally, I’ve gotten a handful of jury summonses in my life but never actually been called to do it (a summons is sort of warning you that you may be called, not a guarantee). I’d be happy to do it, I think it’s an extremely important part of our justice system, but I recognize the privilege of having a comfortable salaried job. For people with more precarious hourly work, jury duty can end up being a major financial burden. You usually get some kind of stipend, but not enough to replace work if it drags on for weeks.
Everyone complains about it.
Everyone agrees that it’s one of the most fundamental things that makes America, America.
It’s not government bureaucrats, or lawyers, or those with advanced degrees that make what could be the most momentous decision in one’s life. It’s your peers.
It is a core responsibility of American citizenship.
I’ve served on juries a couple times; it restores my faith in our country every time. Everyone – from the lawyer or doctor to the janitor or mechanic on the panel takes his/her role very seriously.
> I was shocked that people with no legal education are pulled from their jobs and serve in juries for very little amounts of money.
It’s a civic duty, and an essential check on government power within a judicial system.