ive never been on a jury.been registered to vote for twenty five years

Reply to post by WTFover

I've bee a victim of several crimes and "justice" is wholly fictitious.

Locking a person up is not justice. The risk of locking somebody up who didn't do anything wrong as minute as it may be is not worth locking anyone up.

The only real justice in life for victims is accepting what happened and moving on to live your life as best you can. Anything else selling itself as justice is hogwash. Extending your pain to others, even to the perpetrator, is simply extending pain. No good comes from that.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

Yep-I've been registered to vote for 24 years and have never been called. I've always thought that was strange, because some people get called over and over. I'll probably go home today and find the summons in my mailbox. :-)

reply to post by WTFover


I don't see how you can say that. First off doesn't make it fact, it just seems that way or "says to me" second it's based on my first hand witness.

Really though I think you just wanted to argue because anyone can see that it was a smug statement, and 3 life sentences is crazy.

reply to post by WTFover


Yeah I did. It is. What does smaller case imply to you?
To me it implies something that happens very often and isn't of media/public interest.
What did you get out of it?

reply to post by robomont


To answer your question. No it isn't a jury of your peers. A lot of times the ones that want to do it have an agenda before they ever hear the case due to politics. If you are lucky you will have someone that cares about people, if you aren't you get some religious person that wants to do "god's work" from the bench.

For the system to really work they would have to spend a lot of time on jury selection in every case, not just the "big ones." Kinda like how doctors medicate kids after one visit and label the add. It should take a long time to determine. Unfortunately it just doesn't work that way.

Not to bring it up too much, (and I am not trolling, I truly believe this) but the Casey Anthony case this year was a prime example of how the jury system should be. Maybe they should spend weeks finding a good, unbiased, jury and then make them do a kind of do a type of jury tour of duty for 6 months (paying them better obviously).

The laws for jury duty vary by state. In my state, the jury pool is chosen randomly from both voter registration and DMV records. You only have to report for jury duty once in a 12-month period. If you get summoned more than that, you can get excused by explaining you have already served once within that time frame.

Both the D.A. and the defense attorney have to agree on the candidates picked from the jury poo to serve on the juryl. Since there are tons of people called for jury duty on a single case, and they only select 12 with a couple of alternates, it's not that common to actually be selected as a juror. Most cases resolve before they ever get to trial anyway through plea bargains. That's why you usually just wind up sitting around, but ultimately are told to go home. Even when that happens, you're done with your jury duty for that year.

reply to post by robomont


I think for my country its based on registered voters

I lived in a city of a million and a half for years and never got called up to my local jury service, I moved down the country to a small town and within 6 months im called up for local jury service for the region for the first time, and I get a summons every year like clock work (expect for the years they give you off, which is usually 2). Ive been called up 4 times, served 3 times. First was a fraud case that lasted 2 weeks, second was a drugs charge lasted 3 days, third was a child molestation case that lasted 2 days but never got off the ground had a false start and then one of the jurors found out they knew the defendant so the jury was dismissed and a new one picked (thankfully, didn't want to be on that one at all... who would).

Personally your lucky to not have been called up, given a jury (in my country) is allowed to be massaged, ie the two sides are allowed to reject up to 3 jurors each based on occupation, appearance and other things its hardly a happy job. Most Ive talked to dont like the idea of doing it and would rather continue to go to work for better pay instead of serve in the justice system. Personally i think its a moral duty for every person and should be taken seriously.

As to not being a jury of your peers, id say that often they are and often they arent and often both at the same time, its all about your luck with the personality of the jurors. Ive seen old men act like young idiots with bad attitudes and young people act and think with wisdom 20 years their age. Its just a matter of everyone taking the task seriously and unbiasedly.

Me I take the job very seriously, I listen to the facts ignore the charismatic BS both lawyers attempt and base it on law. In the drugs trial I was on if you looked at the facts the police (or the crown in my country) had nothing to go on in one of the two charges. A number of the jurors basically from the outset said guilty (most of them where people over 50) regardless of the facts simply because the accused was a drug user... ie he used therefore he must have also manufactured, i dont like drugs and think anyone who uses them are idiots (meth in this case) but if the prosecutor cannot prove guilt then regardless of their 'crime' they must go free. Some people just cant swallow that fact and basically let their personal views on a subject get in the way and that can go both ways... in the end we found him guilty on one charge but not the more serious charge of manufacturing. The look of disgust from the prosecution lawyers face was priceless he couldnt believe we could find him guilty of use but not the other (the guy was a user who was boarding for a little while in a friends/suppliers meth lab house and just happened to be the guy at home when the police turned up while the houses owner got away since he wasnt around).

In the business fraud case we all had agreed the outcome by the middle of the second week (the lawyer for the defense how ever was a smarmy git who was drawing out the case for no good reason and we'd heard enough by then to easily make a choice). However on the last day one of the women on the jury (and unfortunately its a womans trait) said she had a gut feeling the pair was innocent, and changed her choice to not guilty and couldn't be swayed back... which shocked us all and we ended up arguing and got a hung jury and the case thrown out and reassigned to a latter date ... not a good feeling at all, the tension as we all left the court house was tangible and the woman was in tears. a few years latter they changed the rule from 12/12 to 11/12 majority which is still to damn high should be 10/12 personally since there will always be an idiot or two, the cost in tax payers money for these hung trials is huge, and from what the bailiff told me hung jurys happen a hell of a lot.

The system works well from the time ive been in it, sometimes it can go wrong, and sometimes it can go very wrong but ultimately you have to remember that while the jury decides guilt or innocence its the judge that does the sentencing and if he thinks the jury is wrong he can overturn them and most judges ive seen are good in this regard or they give a sentence in keeping with how they saw the case. At least that is what it is like in my country.