"So, I've been sitting in the jury pool for 4 hours now"

That about sums up my jury duty experience. No good stories here.

When I had jury duty, they didn't even end up bringing the case to trial (the lawyer was trying to figure out a plea bargain in another room while we had to wait for selection). The courthouse provided cider and donuts and we just hung out for 3 hours then I ended up getting paid my normal rate for my job plus like 20 extra bucks. I was all for that.

Yeah I've got a story:

This one time I killed a guy so they had to get a jury to try me, but it was in this tiny town so everybody already knew me so they had to try me elsewhere and it took a real long time. I bribed my way out of it though, no worries.

I was in jury duty and actually got selected for the jury... it was an interesting process, a case that lasted all of about 5 hours and we ended up finding the woman not guilty more because they failed to prove false all possible alibis more than we honestly believed her as not having done it.

Just start randomly saying "Guilty!" and"Lety him burn!" for no apparent reason. They'll dismiss you and never ask you back again.

Honestly, I wouldn't have minded serving. I don't have a job atm, so it doesn't really inconvenience me. I just wish we didn't have to sit around so long for really no reason.

@Leg - That is exactly how the outcome should have been then. Ifthere is a plausible alternative, just one, then there is reasonable doubt and you shouldn't convict.

@Draugnar - That's why we all agreed... because there was ONE outstanding loophole.

Had a great case when I did jury duty. It was a domestic row that the defendant's wife called the police to sort out. The story of the crime, carried out on New years Day, was told predominantly by the first policeman on the sceen.

The Policeman arrived at the block of flats where the defendant and his wife lived and found the wife hiding in the hallway. Telling her to wait out of sight PC Plod goes to the flat and knocks on the door. The defendant answers and tells the cop to "fuck off, you fucking bastard".

Our heroic policeman refuses and the defendant then says "ok, you little shit. You wait here while I get me cleavers". Amazingly the policeman waits and the defendant, true to his word, goes into his kitchen and comes back armed with a carving knife, at which point the policeman scarpers.

In his dash to get out of the block of flats our hero finds the wife and says she should follow him to the police car where they can await reinforcements. The woman agrees and they run together...

...Outside the block of flats the policeman realises that he's alone. The wife has decided it's too cold to wait in a car and decided to hide in the block of flat's ground flaw laundry room instead. Our hero policeman runs back to get her, at which point the defendant appears and gives chase, forcing them both to retreat into the laundry room and lock the door...

Now... up until this point the tale has been told entirely by the rather young looking policeman on the stand who blushes whenever he quotes the defendant swearing, but now we're treated to some CCTV footage of the event...

"Come on out and lets talk", says the defendant, "I'm unarmed"

"I'm not coming out until I know you don't have a weapon" says the policeman"

At which point, on full CCTV, the defendant starts to strip naked and do a dance to prove beyond doubt he had no concealed weapons....

I have never tried so hard not to laugh in my life!!!

It was after this that the judge, who looked like he was loosing the will to live, called a halt for dinner. Sadly we never went back after lunch as the defendant (who had been sniggering all through the trial) decided to change his plea to guilty. That was my only trial... everything else was just waiting around.

I got called for grand jury duty but I didn't get picked. It probably would of been interesting too since it was when all that Blagovich stuff was going on

Bu the way, CF. I hate O'Hare airport and it took me a freaking hour to get out of Chicago on I-90 from O'Hare at 11PM Friday night! What a Mongolian Cluster Fuck that traffic nightmare was!

Oct's story is just one more reason why *all* cops shoudl carry guns in the UK. Sure, the defendant would be dead, but he came at a cop with a lethal weapon (the knife) and so his life is forfeit at that point.

Octavious, where was that? Doesn't sound like the trigger-happy US police.

Oh, the UK. Yeah, it did sound like civilization.

I've served on two jury trials - I'm only recounting them here as I have anonimity. The first was this guy who shot a man in Reno. We found he guilty.

I recount the second one later.

My story... Well, not exactly jury duty... I was stopped in the street by a cop, who said he needed my help. I was still young and naive, so I followed him. We entered the nearby police building and he ushered me to a room with four other people, all men. It was only when I noticed the glass wall that I realized I was in a line-up. Lol... Croatia had some funny stuff in the nineties.

...Really, Draug? That's the conclusion you took from that trial? Because of the view the UK takes on guns the policeman didn't carry a firearm and neither did the thug. The US version of this story involves a gunfight in which any combination of the characters and passers by end up greviously wounded or dead. The UK version ends up with the bad guy in gaol and everyone alive and well.

Some fun UK stats from the Home office:
(Statistics on police use of firearms in England and Wales 2010-11)

The Police discharged a conventional firearm in 3 incidents (down from 6 incidents in
2009-10 and 5 incidents in 2008-09).

It would be interesting to know how the US compares...

My take on jury duty, from Larry David:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MFebZlUJ7E

@Oct - Actually, the US version doesn't likely involve a gunfight in most cases. Fewer than 40% of the households in the US own guns. And when you consider that large swatchs of gun ownership is more rural and involves hunting guns, and that gun ownership (legal gun onwership that is) is prohibited to felons and the mentally unstable, that story becomes less and less likely to involve the perp having a gun (clearly unstable and most likely had a prior conviction).

Also, Oct, remember that the entire population of Wales is just over 3 million people. New York has nearly 3 times that many people.

England has 53 million people. The US has 350 million (more than 6 times the size).

So let's compare discharges per armed police officers. How many armed police are there? Compare that to the number of armed polize in the US and then see what percentage had discharges in any given year. I know several cops who have been on the force many years and never fired a shot outside the range.

And finally, Oct. Whether it be a gun or a knife, sending an officer out without the means to defend himself from lethal force is criminal and a travesty. I didn't say arm everyone. I said all the cops should be armed. I stand by that statement. Every bobby in the UK should have a gun. Period.

Draugnar, you totally missed the point. The fact that there are so many armed police officers in the US is deplorable in itself.

No, it isn't. The fact that there are so many illegal guns and criminals willing to use them is deplorable. The fact that we arm our law enforcement officers so they can protect themselves from would be killers as well as protect the innocent is laudable.

So... You're saying the American population is murderous, so you need murderers to protect you (who?) from other Americans.

Excuse me? Self defense is not murder. I think you need to find a new dictionary if you think it is.

And yes, the *criminal* population within the US is not above commiting murder. We have a murder, rape,m and drug problem in our inner cities that is spreading like a cancer to the suburbs and armin our police (trained law enforcement officers) to handle the situation is wise. Would you have our standing army wander around with no rifles and no tanks?

Pure paranoia on a national scale. But why? Divide and conquer? Maybe. But I don't like conspiracy theories, so I won't go there.

"Just start randomly saying "Guilty!" and"Lety him burn!" for no apparent reason. They'll dismiss you and never ask you back again. "

Well, they'll ask you back to pay the contempt of court fine.


I've been called twice. The first time nothing happened, didn't even have to show up to be selected because there weren't any cases I guess. That was for the city. The second time was for the county and I got selected. They told us that normally cases are all done within the day, and that a lot of times they end up getting settled out of court.

This one went two days. And when we finally got into the jury room to deliberate, we decided not guilty within minutes. We were instructed that there were these two things we had to decide were both true to proceed with a guilty vote and one of them was right out. But we spent an hour or two going over the other part just because after two days of trial we wanted to at least talk about it.

@Draugnar - the police chiefs, the police rank and file and their 'Union' do not want to carry arms....but I suppose as some guy on an internet forum hundreds of miles away says they should, that's good enough for me.

The UK has a tradition of policing by consent, it isn't perfect, but it generally suits the UK, I don't pretend it could work in other cultures, but by and large it works here.

I don't have a "jury duty" tale, but I can tell you about a Judge who was getting past it
( old age) and who would regularly fall asleep after a good lunch with drinks
The court staff were used to this Judge's weakness & had all these "discreet" tactics that they would use when they saw him nodding off such as banging books on tables etc.
Well my sister ( a lawyer & early in her career when she was still single ) was appearing before this judge and she had a woman witness (middle aged ) who was giving evidence in the dreaded "after lunch" session and Justice B started nodding off --- the court staff go into their routine as the Judge starts nodding off & my sister repreats each question where the Judge has nodded off & been re awakened, and gets the woman to repeat her answers, and each time the woman answers a bit more forcefully and louder, until it gets too much for her, and as the judge nods off yet again she stops halfway through an answer and says quite loudly "are you listening to me or sleeping ?"
The judge wakes up with a startled look, there is a deadly silence, the woman witness is glaring at the judge & my sister trys to smooth things over and get the woman to return to the evidence when the woman says to her
" you're obviously not married, my husband does this all the time and I just jab him with a knitting needle & that works wonders on his attention." She glares at the judge & then rummages around in her handbag and pulls out a ball of wool with 2 knitting needles and places them on the counter in front of her, then says " as I was saying ... and repeats her answer to the last question my sister had asked.
Justice B sits bolt upright and stays fully awake for the remainder of the womans evidence, then calls an adjournment until the next day.