Politics because it involves the government. My wife is sitting and I mean sitting and waiting in jury duty. Trial started last Wednesday and as of today, 4 full days, has spent less than 6 hours in the court room. no more than 2 hours each day and after being there 6 hours today waiting all day. This is absolutely ridiculous and and an abuse of these good citizens. No one expect to spend 8 hours hearing testimony each day, but come on. She's already had to change plans and this is trending to screw up lots of other things, let alone her personal business that she has to work on after she gets home.

Question - What can she do to get out now?

We've always tried to be good people and do our civic duty, but this is just unbelievable.

I hate it, but if she doesn't do it, some looney will. Civic duty, obligation of being an American, etc.

When they hit that Patriot button, I stand up and salute. I ain't proud of it, but I ain't ashamed of it either.

Sounds like she has a very, very bad judge.

In terms of what she can do now, stand up and yell "guilty"

Best bet is to talk to the judge about it

imagine that, hourly paid attorneys dragging out a case and the salaried govt employees not giving a rip either

If/when she's asked a question, her reply should start with, "According to the Prophecy...".

That ought to be enough to be released.

What county? What judge? Unless ske has something like surgery scheduled, she's not getting off.

Similar to my experience. Mine went for 2 weeks and resulted in an 11-1 hung jury. The lone holdout was the only African American and said he couldn't be convinced the African American defendant was guilty. Judge, also African American, came in after it was done and asked what the problem was. She told us he was willing to take a plea of 25 years as she knew ( evidence we couldn't see) he was guilty and it wasn't enough time for the crime. Holdout couldn't look judge in the face. Good luck…..

Its not about get out of being selected they set the jury last week and spend all their time waiting. Courtroom for 10 minutes and excused, 2 hours later go back in for a few more minutes. Rinse and repeat.

I get that there are motions and other B.S. but this is ridiculous. And doing your patriotic civic duty should be done, by all, but this is cruel and unusual punishment.

How long does he life have to be on hold with no end in sight? Show up and wait is just unacceptable.

It always bugs me that in the courtroom during a trial, often literally everyone there, from the judge to the attorneys, to the court reporter, to any actual reporters in the gallery, are getting paid fairly for their time except for the defendant and the jury.

And when it's a civil case, it's often only the jury getting the shaft. And especially then, when you have two multinational corporations battling it out for billions in profits, and they make jurors miss work for 6 bucks a day to arbitrate their dispute for them.

I'm all for civic duty, but I think it should fall under the takings clause of the 5th amendment like eminent domain and you should be entitled to fair compensation for your time.

I was on a jury recently where the defendant confessed to shooting the man, but claimed self defense. We saw video of him sitting around with the victim, standing up, and shooting the victim unprovoked.

We had 12 jurors and 2 alternates. All 12 of us concluded he was guilty of murder pretty quick. Afterwards, we were talking to the alternates and one said he was glad he wasn't in the deliberation room because he didn't think the guy did it. After a confession and video evidence.

Tell her to let the bailiff know that she has a bomb in her purse and she'll blow everyone up unless they hurry and finish the trial. That will get her out of it pretty quickly.

She doesn't want to end up in jail putting anyone else through this misery.

agdx88 said:

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She doesn't want to end up in jail

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Oh, well you should have said so in the first place

MookieBlaylock said:

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imagine that, hourly paid attorneys dragging out a case and the salaried govt employees not giving a rip either

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It's like people really have no clue how the justices system really works. If you want out of jury duty wear a Christian or patriotic shirt especially a pro 2A shirt and bring a bible. 90% of the time neither side want you on the jury.

Sounds like a juicy case or a very inept one.

Was there a white bronco involved?

Or are you saying she's just waiting to be picked for a jury at this point. When sitting for jury duty, I thought you had to be picked that day. That's how I always worked when I had it.

agdx88 said:

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Politics because it involves the government. My wife is sitting and I mean sitting and waiting in jury duty. Trial started last Wednesday and as of today, 4 full days, has spent less than 6 hours in the court room. no more than 2 hours each day and after being there 6 hours today waiting all day. This is absolutely ridiculous and and an abuse of these good citizens. No one expect to spend 8 hours hearing testimony each day, but come on. She's already had to change plans and this is trending to screw up lots of other things, let alone her personal business that she has to work on after she gets home.

Question - What can she do to get out now?

We've always tried to be good people and do our civic duty, but this is just unbelievable.

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1. At the beginning of the day, the judge probably has to take care of other things on his docket each day before starting on your wife's trial.
2. At the end of the day, if there is a witness that is expected to be on the stand for a while, the judge may decide to end testimony early so it's not broken up overnight.
3. During the day, there must be a lot of discussion on whether certain evidence/testimony can be admitted. They are hiding something from her. Tell her to look it up on the internet to see what it is.

I've never been called for jury duty. Weird.

Yeah, intentionally looking up information you shouldn't see in order to cause a dismissal for yourself and possibly cause a mistrial is a good way to pick up a contempt of court charge.

She was picked. Trial started and they spend very little time in the court room hearing evidence. They get sent back to the jury room. Most likely the lawyers are doing their lawyer crap arguing about what can and can't be said. Getting judge ruling on admissibility or whatever the high priced lawyers argue about while the good citizens trying to the right thing get shafted for less than minimum wage. 4 days of trial and less than 6 hours of hearing evidence is crazy stuff. What a waste of f-ing time.

We must do better than this.

Most judges do do better than that.

As I said, she got a really really bad judge.

agdx88 said:

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She was picked. Trial started and they spend very little time in the court room hearing evidence. They get sent back to the jury room. Most likely the lawyers are doing their lawyer crap arguing about what can and can't be said. Getting judge ruling on admissibility or whatever the high priced lawyers argue about while the good citizens trying to the right thing get shafted for less than minimum wage. 4 days of trial and less than 6 hours of hearing evidence is crazy stuff. What a waste of f-ing time.

We must do better than this.

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Do better, its the government bro. She should be thankful the AC is working in the building. Civilians are so cute when complaining about how the justice system works.

Zero time in the court room today, but by god you better be here by 9.00 AM ready to go. Why can't the court be respectful of the juries time?

Its unbelievable and not only impacts jury, but it impacts me and my family. Stuff has be cancelled, put on hold, shuffling of responsibilities, and all kinds of *****

They are legally trapped with threat of fines and imprisonment at this point.

Like anything else, people need to get mad and organize for change.

The problem is the people that most want to avoid jury duty know how and aren't bothered by bending the truth.

I used to decline but now only decline when I have a genuine reason, as in I am on the road for work or no one can watch my kids. I changed my mind after a post years ago by an Ag on Varsity who had a family member convicted of murder and the DA was going for the life w/o parole. It was a very complicated case, lots of forensics, expert witness's etc. and the highest educated person on the jury was a shift manager at sonic with a GED. I wouldn't want that to happen to a member of my family.

But I agree there could/should be some refinement in the process.

Better to be judged by twelve people not smart enough to get out of jury duty than carried by six?

It's not about avoiding jury duty its about respecting and valuing the service they jurors provide. I've served gladly served a few juries, but nothing close to this mess of waiting. My view and desire to serve has greatly changed.

I know its game for the lawyers in hopes of reaching deal, but be respectful of others. Their time and service is valuable as well.

For commercial civil cases, good judges almost always force the parties to pay the jurors more than the statutory $40/day. I think the current going rate is an extra 100-150/day per side. They also make the parties provide lunch.

Sucks on the criminal side because the state doesn't have appropriations for that and the defendant is usually poor.

Completely agree, but this is just abusive.

I've been on a jury where we spent a bunch of time in the court, but hours of it with quiet convos and stuff going on we aren't hearing. I would have MUCH rather have been sent back to a more comfortable room for that.

You sign up for days of government work, it's not going to be entertaining.

Martin Cash said:

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What county? What judge? Unless ske has something like surgery scheduled, she's not getting off.

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Looks like the OP is in Houston, so Harris County. Which means that it is indeed a bad judge since a majority of Harris County voters pick by skin color instead of competence. I would like to hear the name of the judge though, so we can get her NAACP status.

So what are you proposing as a solution? Or are you just going to keep *****ing.

Passive aggressive way to solve this?

On her jury notepad (which the bailiff "totally doesn't look at") have her write in big letters "They're obviously hiding something from us."

If she's been there for 4 days and doesn't know which party is causing the problems, those are some VERY VERY well behaved lawyers. Usually the judges want to clear their docket, so whatever they're arguing is probably also very sensitive or nuanced. My personal experience is that the side fighting hard to keep something out generally gets punished by the jury and rewarded in appeals.

the most cool guy said:

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Tell her to let the bailiff know that she has a bomb in her purse and she'll blow everyone up unless they hurry and finish the trial. That will get her out of it pretty quickly.

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Then she'll have time to prepare for her own trial.

AtomicActuator said:

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It always bugs me that in the courtroom during a trial, often literally everyone there, from the judge to the attorneys, to the court reporter, to any actual reporters in the gallery, are getting paid fairly for their time except for the defendant and the jury.

And when it's a civil case, it's often only the jury getting the shaft. And especially then, when you have two multinational corporations battling it out for billions in profits, and they make jurors miss work for 6 bucks a day to arbitrate their dispute for them.

I'm all for civic duty, but I think it should fall under the takings clause of the 5th amendment like eminent domain and you should be entitled to fair compensation for your time.

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it's been $45 a day for 7 or 8 years.