Why you should never say stupid stuff to get out of jury duty

If you really want to get out of jury duty, and do so legally, tell them you've already served. I was on a jury a couple years ago and when I got called back to go again, I told them I had already served.
They asked me some of the case details--so if you're lying you might have to make up a bit here--but the key was when they asked me if I thought it would influence my ability to sit on this jury, I said it would because, and this was the truth, it was a very boring experience and not something I enjoyed doing. I really felt like sitting through it again would make me less inclined to ask questions during deliberation and more likely to just form an opinion and stick to it in an effort to get out as soon as possible.

 

All I had to do was tell them I worked for a newspaper.
I suppose I could have falsely added I was prejudiced, but they were already pointing me toward the door.

 

Wear this to jury selection:

 

Not a lawyer but that seems like a vast overreach by the judge to, for all practical purposes, jail a potential member of the jury in the courtroom for Constitutionally protected speech.

 

Heh. I had a co-worker once who got called for jury duty. She was asked something along the lines of do you think this person arrested for murder is automatically guilty. She answered "Hell yes he's guilty!" She was immediately dismissed.
I've been summoned three times. Once in college, I was summoned back home and was thus excused. Summoned a second time, but I explained I was the only one writing stories at my paper and thus couldn't take the week off. If we had a bigger staff, I actually wouldn't have minded serving. Third time, number didn't get called.

 

Plus that t-shirt would be awesome if you were going to cover a high school basketball game later that night.

 

You would be amazed how many innocent people plea bargain. Risk going to trial and getting 20 years or plead guilty and get probation? I was peripherally involved in a death penalty case once where the prosecutor was offering one of the defendants credit time served (meaning he would go home that day) if he just pled guilty. The risk/reward ratio isn't worth it for some, especially when dealing with Defendants who aren't all that worried about things like future employment, stigma, etc.

 

I agree with every word of this, but it scares me how many people don't. The more serious the crime, the less certain a jury has to be to convict. I think most jurors are a lot more worried about someone "getting away with it" then they are about an innocent person going to prison.

 

Well, looks like I'm stuck there for the rest of the week. Maybe a day or two next week. Civil case. Lots of expert witnesses lined up, sure to repeat the same things over and over.

Whole big group of people sat around waiting in a room to get called. They took 18 of us for the case I wound up on. One guy got sent away rather quickly because his English wasn't up to snuff. One of the lawyers dismissed another guy who I believe they thought wasn't too bright. The lawyer sent another woman away and I have no idea why. Some guy who clearly didn't want to be there, or at least on that case, was sent away by the judge. The rest of us seem rather normal.

 

Must be easy work to be on a jury where I covered courts. Maybe, maybe 10 percent of things got to trial. Most people accepted a plea. Never got to serve on a jury myself, but my buddy who is now the sports editor not only made it to the jury for a murder trial but was also elected foreman. Had that been me, I would've consulted the instructional video:

 

The absolute worst part of the process is going through the jury selection process and listening to attorneys ask questions like the pool is made up of 4-year-olds. I know, some people really are that stupid, but give the rest of the pool some credit for knowing people were found guilty of crimes before anyone ever saw "CSI" or "Law and Order."

 

Good voir dire is trying to accomplish two things: 1. Advance your theory of the case and 2. Get people to get themselves struck for cause. (I think #2 is more important, most older lawyers would say #1 is). The idea of a jury as a blank slate is a joke: everyone has preconceived notions about how to see the world, and no lawyer is changing that in one trial. Finding the jury most likely to accept your theory of the case is of paramount importance.
Re: Getting people to get themselves struck for cause: Most jurisdictions allow lawyers a very limited number of peremptory challenges i.e. challenges you can make for any reason at all, except race and gender. Before that, you make challenges for cause, i.e. asking the judge to remove someone who cannot be fair toward your side. Open ended questioning that sparks a discussion works great on this, the key is encouraging people to speak out and say, "Yeah, there are too many lawsuits" or "Yeah, we need to lock more/fewer people up", etc. and, ahem, help them walk themselves into admitting that they would, even slightly, favor one side over the other (although it's not actually necessary to get them to admit that).
The CSI stuff is something prosecutors have complained about for years. Mostly, I think they just want the jury to anchor "beyond a reasonable doubt" to something other than CSI. (Whenever I hear them talk about convictions pre-CSI, I always think "yeah, and you had a lot more wrongful convictions back then, too).