Jury Duty

[ChrisF202]

How is this handled in your state/country? Do you have to serve or is their a pool of "professional jurors"?

Here in NY; jury duty for state district court, county criminal and civil courts, town justice courts and village courts are randomly selected and you MUST attend or the deputy sheriff's will come looking for you and arrest you but most people just throw away the summons and say they never got it.

[RustyBattleship]

Originally Posted by ChrisF202

How is this handled in your state/country? Do you have to serve or is their a pool of "professional jurors"?

Here in NY; jury duty for state district court, county criminal and civil courts, town justice courts and village courts are randomly selected and you MUST attend or the deputy sheriff's will come looking for you and arrest you but most people just throw away the summons and say they never got it.

California jury selection committees do not believe you never got the summons. So the county sheriff comes knocking at your door anyway. Self employed people used to be excused from Jury Duty as being gone for a whole week (or more if you get stuck on a long trial) would provide a financial hardship but not being able to run your business.

But that doesn't count anymore. If your business is ruined they will direct you to the office to file for bankruptcy and SSA.

Jury selection used to be for a whole month (which I served one time many years ago). So the self employed exemption was logical and fair. But not anymore.

Doctor's certificates were needed if you were physically unable to attend due to very serious injuries or illnesses. Even deaf people can't get out of jury service as they will provide staff to give hand signals to lip readers. But my friend Hal and I are NOT lip readers. If the battery goes out in one or both of our hearing aids we are NOT allowed to call a time out to change batteries.

If you have both legs broken, they will arrange a way of getting you into court.

The only out that has worked for me is the fact I'm over 70 years old and have had a heart failure problem. Being over 70 I don't even need a doctor's note.

The only Jury Duty I ever wanted to be on (my wife was invited once but she didn't take up on it) is the Grand Jury. You get paid more including higher mileage rate. Get issued a badge and when on field investigations allowed to get a license to carry a gun.

It used to be for a whole year but is now down to only 3 to 6 months depending on what county you are in.

[crooks]

Originally Posted by ChrisF202

How is this handled in your state/country? Do you have to serve or is their a pool of "professional jurors"?

Here in NY; jury duty for state district court, county criminal and civil courts, town justice courts and village courts are randomly selected and you MUST attend or the deputy sheriff's will come looking for you and arrest you but most people just throw away the summons and say they never got it.

I've served as a juror in Ireland - Random selection at all levels here, in which you can be assigned to (in order of importance, top to bottom):

Supreme Court
Court of Criminal appeal
High Court/Central Criminal Court/Special Criminal court
Circuit Court
District Court

I've served on Cork City's district court (which is for petty crimes in the Greater Cork region, home to about 200,000 people), in a simple enough robbery case - it's seen as a fairly important thing here, but we have a fair few bunkers as well, many use the 'didn't recieve summons' excuse as well.

That said, some people see it as a useful way to get a week off work (5 days is the usual tenure and for the Supreme Court, COCA, HC, CCC, SCC there's a massive pool of potential jurors, about half don't get assigned a case, and so have no work to do bar wait around staring at the pretty paintings in the Four Courts).

The fines for not attenting at all with no excuse or being found out over summons and not bothering are 2,500 euro and potential imprisionment.

[Debbie]

Got called to Jury Duty once but had an active case going - one has to submit the number of the case as proof and I was dismissed for duty.

[ChrisF202]

The fines for not attending at all with no excuse or being found out over summons and not bothering are 2,500 euro and potential imprisonment.

thats quite a punishment.

Here though I think its an automatic jail sentence for contempt of court. But like I said, my county sheriff's department only has about 300 deputies who are responsible for everything from civil process, courthouse security, prisoner transport, warrants and evictions to regular law enforcement functions so the chances of them coming looking for you unless your wanted for other things is pretty slim.

[RustyBattleship]

Originally Posted by ChrisF202

thats quite a punishment.

county sheriff's department only has about 300 deputies ------------- so the chances of them coming looking for you unless your wanted for other things is pretty slim.

If they are looking for you for something else, that probably would not qualify you for jury duty anyway.

[crooks]

Originally Posted by ChrisF202

thats quite a punishment.

Here though I think its an automatic jail sentence for contempt of court. But like I said, my county sheriff's department only has about 300 deputies who are responsible for everything from civil process, courthouse security, prisoner transport, warrants and evictions to regular law enforcement functions so the chances of them coming looking for you unless your wanted for other things is pretty slim.

They pretty much had to introduce it due to the fact the opposition (who are very compotent on Law and Order) were hounding the government over the quite high rate of non-attendence - It's worked well, the rate was cut from 37% in 1997 to 14% in 2007.

I should also add Ireland has quite a proportionatly large police force (though the word police isn't used - they are called An Gardai Siochana, usually shortened to The Gardai) - how large is your county in population?

My Town (Blarney, about 3 miles outside Cork City) has 1 Garda station 12 Garda, for about 2,300 residents.

For Judicial purposes we are outside Cork City's jurastriction, and are part of the surrounding Cork County, which is geographically much larger, but more thinly populated, being predominantly rural (and so crime rates are very low) - though in the city, which is where I work, play and consider my spiritual home, crime rates are much higher (far beneath the levels of most other countries even at this though, we ranked 5th on the Global Peace Index!).

My town might as well be in Switzerland, very peaceful - if you ever want to escape urban life, Rural Ireland is the place to go.

[Parihaka]

Here everyone does duty, I've done one case and been excused for the next six years.

[gunnut]

I got called to jury duty probably 5 times in the last 12 years. Sat on a jury once for a breaking and entering/vandalism case. They really like me there. I expect to be called back any day now.

[glyn]

In the UK you can be called for jury duty up to a certain age. I have only been called once - to a coroners court. On leaving the services I was invited to consider becoming a magistrate, but when I discovered I would not be able to don the black kerchief and deliver the death sentence I rapidly went off the idea. However, I spent some time watching from the public gallery of the courtroom. Most interesting.

[ChrisF202]

Originally Posted by crooks

They pretty much had to introduce it due to the fact the opposition (who are very compotent on Law and Order) were hounding the government over the quite high rate of non-attendence - It's worked well, the rate was cut from 37% in 1997 to 14% in 2007.

I should also add Ireland has quite a proportionatly large police force (though the word police isn't used - they are called An Gardai Siochana, usually shortened to The Gardai) - how large is your county in population?

My Town (Blarney, about 3 miles outside Cork City) has 1 Garda station 12 Garda, for about 2,300 residents.

For Judicial purposes we are outside Cork City's jurastriction, and are part of the surrounding Cork County, which is geographically much larger, but more thinly populated, being predominantly rural (and so crime rates are very low) - though in the city, which is where I work, play and consider my spiritual home, crime rates are much higher (far beneath the levels of most other countries even at this though, we ranked 5th on the Global Peace Index!).

My town might as well be in Switzerland, very peaceful - if you ever want to escape urban life, Rural Ireland is the place to go.

Suffolk County is 975 square miles with a population of about 1,500,000 but we also have a 2,600 member county police department dont ask why the police and sheriff are separate agencies; politics plays a very big role here) plus about 800 officers employed by 30 or so town and village police departments in addition to a mere handful of New York State Police troopers and New York State Park Police officers. I do believe though that a county to you Brits and Irish is really more like a state to us Americans.

I recall reading on Wikipedia that Ireland also has sheriffs, do they basically perform the same things as our sheriffs do like courthouse security, civil process, evictions, warrants, county government building security, prisoner transport to state and federal correctional facilities, etc? Do they handle any police functions or is that specifically up to the Garda?

One of my great great grandfathers served in the RIC before immigrating to the US so I do have some connection to the Garda and the Garda is the successor agency to the RIC.

[Knaur Amarsh]

Originally Posted by ChrisF202

How is this handled in your state/country?

No jury duty in India.A judge or a bench of judges decide the verdict.

[bolo121]

Yup, In india medium difficult to bribe judges at high court level and up.
If ordinary citizens were on a jury it would be open season.

[crooks]

Originally Posted by ChrisF202

Suffolk County is 975 square miles with a population of about 1,500,000 but we also have a 2,600 member county police department dont ask why the police and sheriff are separate agencies; politics plays a very big role here) plus about 800 officers employed by 30 or so town and village police departments in addition to a mere handful of New York State Police troopers and New York State Park Police officers. I do believe though that a county to you Brits and Irish is really more like a state to us Americans.

That's true - Ireland is split into 32 counties, 26 of which form the Republic of Ireland and 6 of which form Northern Ireland.

They are furthermore split in to the 'Four Provinces' - Leinster (12 counties), Ulster (9), Munster (6) and Connacht (5).

County Cork is actually the largest in the country geographically, but local government is confusing to newcomers as there is a distinction made between historic counties, which is Cork as an entirety, which many people have a great deal of pride in, especially when the All-Ireland Gaelic football cup is on! - but by local government, the county is split into 'Cork City', the metropole, and 'Cork County', the rural heartland.

Counties are actually very similar to states in many ways, and Provinces could be considered the equivalent to US regions - a great degree of local pride and quite a bit of loyalty can be found in them, as well as huge historical significance, and a certain degree of attachment to your 'patch'.

Originally Posted by ChrisF202

I recall reading on Wikipedia that Ireland also has sheriffs, do they basically perform the same things as our sheriffs do like courthouse security, civil process, evictions, warrants, county government building security, prisoner transport to state and federal correctional facilities, etc? Do they handle any police functions or is that specifically up to the Garda?

Well the closest thing to that description that we have are the Sergeants, who are slightly more qualified and of a higher command than a regular Garda - Much of the duties above would be carried out by Gardai (the plural) under the command of a Sergeant, or at a Sergeant's approval.

They also get 'right in the frontlines' over police work, alongside detectives, and the State Pathologist's office (currently lead by Dr Moira Cassidey, a Scot), who's primary task is the same as the US' CSI (not sure if that's the proper term, the show's great though ).

Originally Posted by ChrisF202

One of my great great grandfathers served in the RIC before immigrating to the US so I do have some connection to the Garda and the Garda is the successor agency to the RIC.

That's quite a good tradition - during it's existence however the RIC was hated due to the perception of it being a collaberator's force with the British occupiers - 'Castle Catholics', ie Middle class, mild, mostly Catholic Unionists would make up the bulk of it's officers in the 26, which earned it the utter loathing of Irish Republicans and Nationalists (who formed maybe 85%-90% of the population) everywhere.

It's proper successor would be the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabuletery), which was the Police in NI from 1922 to 1998 - It suffered alot of the same problems (it was a vehicle for Protestants and was blatantly one-sided during the Troubles), and eventually for community compromise became the PSNI (very simple, Police Service of Northern Ireland).

[Knaur Amarsh]

Originally Posted by glyn

In the UK you can be called for jury duty up to a certain age. I have only been called once - to a coroners court. On leaving the services I was invited to consider becoming a magistrate, but when I discovered I would not be able to don the black kerchief and deliver the death sentence I rapidly went off the idea. However, I spent some time watching from the public gallery of the courtroom. Most interesting.

Ah,but you could have had your own reserved parking spot and be called Your Honour......