Fuckin' random my ass. I don't want to do, but I have to. Shall I defer it for next year? or shall I just do it and get it over and done with? I have to sit in a jury! and decide the outcome of a criminal case.
I had jury duty last year - supposedly two weeks, but I got lucky, the case only lasted a week and they said I didn't need to come back. Anyway, my advice is to get it out of the way. You'll start by having an intro to the criminal justice system and what you're supposed to do. Then you wait around for ages until you get picked for a case, you're sworn in, then you leave court while the lawyers do all the preliminary agreements. Any time there's a dispute over a point of law, or something similar, you'll have to leave the courtroom... Put simply, you're going to be waiting around for a while, take something to read!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
imo, the jury system is moronic, because the jury mostly has no legal education and they judge on emotions, etc. I'm glad there's none of that nonesence in mainland Europe. There is more rights and less tv-show nonsence.
Agreed, and not just on a legal point. The case I was a juror on was "Class A possession with intent to supply", against a guy found with 20g heroin and £100 cash on him. However, almost no-one on the jury had any knowledge of heroin, how much 20g actually was, how you can tell if someone is a dealer... Fortunately, two of the jurors had some experience in this area, but if a different jury had been chosen, we'd have all been in the dark, basically guessing. Scary thought.
I've done it once. When they asked me to do it again I declared myself available but also included a note on the form, telling them in no uncertain terms how unutterably fucking depressing my first experience of it was. I expected no good to come of it but, hey presto, a week later, a reply telling me that I've been excused! I jumped for fucking joy, I tell you. It was depressing too - an experience I never want to repeat: wait around for, like, days, trying to make conversation with toffee-nosed wankers who clearly long for the days when children were routinely executed for stealing chewing gum; file into the court and listen to hours and hours of mind-numbing testimony detailing how some sad tosser was caught stealing a bike from someone's back yard (that was one of the cases, I kid you not - in a fucking Crown Court too! What a total wate of fucking time!); file into the jury room and wait for all the hang-'em-and-flog-'em merchants to pass sentence. I did argue with them at first - more for the fun of it than anything else, but it quickly stopped being fun, and became something more akin to smashing your face into a block of concrete over and over again; file back into court and try to maintain a sense of justice served as some crusty old corpse in a silly wig predictably sentences sad tosser to 18 million years in jail; Go back to waiting room and start all over again with no fucking end in sight. Do this every day for 2 interminable weeks. Avoid! Avoid, avoid, avoid - at all costs! Tell them you're ill! Tell them you're not who they say you are! Tell them you're a supporter of Al-Quaida and don't recognise the judicial processes of infidels! Tell them anything! Just don't do it, or you'll regret it, I promise! Yours, still shaking, still having nightmares, still scarred by the memory... redarmy11.
Why do they even go through the whole process? Sentencing by peers? Like wow, are they really your peers?
This is going to be shit. What if it goes on for longer then 2 weeks. I hate working, and this is working. Being rich and going to work is dumb! Well, I hope there are some hot female barristers there am going to try and pull one.
Don't you get paid leave from your job for jury duty? You could pretend you know each defendent. Say you met them in a bar or something. If it's something meaty that will last a few days, you might get told to go home?
i did it once, the case involved some white dude that got drunk and beat up a paki waiter in a restaurant, I tell you what, the feeling of justice being done when we found the bastard guilty and sent him to jail was sublime. I know it's boring having to make the trek to court every day carrying your book or laptop and your sandwiches (don't forget your sandwiches), but it might turn out to be a really interesting case and at the end of the day you will have to actually make a moral and just decision, which is probably a serious challenge for you, but it will end up being an interesting distraction from your daily routine. Being rich, you can always promise yourself a short holiday somewhere nice when it's over.
The state of being a sleazy turk has very little to do with ethnicity beyond a generally jaundiced complexion. It's mostly about the sleazyness.
Have you read "The Bell Curve" by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray? really fascinating read. But if you're black it will probably go over your head.
