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From: Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: [OT] Judge reams out people avoiding jury duty
Date: Tue, 20 May 2025 22:03:41 -0400
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On 2025-05-20 9:40 PM, BTR1701 wrote:
> On May 20, 2025 at 5:45:58 PM PDT, "Rhino" <no_offline_contact@example.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> A judge in Hamilton, Ontario gathered a whole lot of people who had
>> failed to turn up for jury duty and demanded to know why.
>>
>>
>> https://www.thespec.com/news/crime/hamilton-courtroom-fail-to-obey-jury-duty-summons/article_6719b3d0-6d16-58bc-801e-62bf15b3fed1.html
>>
>> I've only been called once and I showed up. The defendant made a last
>> minute decision to plead guilty and the whole jury pool of 250 was
>> dismissed so I wasn't there very long.
>>
>> I'm under the impression that most Americans feel that only fools fail
>> to wiggle out of jury duty. Is this true?
> 
> I'd actually enjoy serving on a jury, especially now that I'm retired and have
> time to kill. Even when I was working, the FedGov's policy is to pay you the
> whole time you're on jury duty as if you were at work, so you don't lose any
> money and you get (potentially) a week out of the office. A lot of people
> aren't so lucky and don't get paid while on a jury. Most, if not all, states
> have laws that prohibit an employer from firing you for jury duty but they
> don't have to pay you while you're on one.
Interesting. I think employers in this country have to pay you for the 
time you are on the jury but it may not be your normal pay. It may just 
be minimum wage, which would be a major cut for people with good jobs. 
When I told my employer about my summons, they assured me it wouldn't be 
a problem for them but it was inconvenient for me because I was working 
an evening shift that ended around midnight so I didn't get my full 
night's sleep before showing up for the jury pool.
> 
> When I retired, I embarked on something I’d wanted to do for years and packed
> up the car and just started lazily driving around the country, state-by-state,
> staying in various places, sometimes a week at a time, to see all the sights.
> L.A. to Key West, Florida to Maine, etc. The trip took me a month and a half.
> 
That's all? I can imagine a trip like that lasting years.

> When I finally returned home, I found a long-expired summons for jury duty in
> my accumulated mail. I called the number on the summons and explained what had
> happened. The woman looked up the number on my summons and said it was no
> problem, they'd just cancel it in the system and issue a new summons for me
> since I was home now and being retired had no work conflicts with serving. And
> a few days later, a new summons showed up. 

Clearly, there are *some* reasons that are considered acceptable for not 
answering the summons and you hit on one of them ;-)

> I went and got eliminated the
> moment both sides discovered I was a lawyer.
> 

Is being a lawyer a get-out-of-jury-duty card in every trial? If so, 
maybe the process of sending out jury summonses should take that into 
account so that lawyers never get asked to serve on juries. Do they at 
least make sure you don't have a criminal record when they compile their 
lists of prospective jurors? Or are people with criminal records 
eligible to serve on juries? What about language? If you don't have 
fluency in the language the court is using, are you automatically 
disqualified from serving or do they find an interpreter for you? (The 
way Trump is proceeding, you may not have nearly as many language issues 
on juries in a few years....).


-- 
Rhino