Comments on: Jury Duty, continued http://www.greenvalleymoments.com/jury-duty-continued/ Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:18:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.5 by: OldGeezer http://www.greenvalleymoments.com/jury-duty-continued/#comment-294 Wed, 30 Nov 2005 12:43:45 +0000 http://www.greenvalleymoments.com/jury-duty-continued/#comment-294 This is just not the situation everywhere. OK, so we don't have courthouses with courtrooms on seven floors and at least five different juries being selected from the same jury pool, but in Iowa, jury members are treated with a lot more consideration than I experienced in Tucson. I was able to locate the Court Calender (not everyone would know where to look for it, nor realize that it is public information) and saw that Judge Lee had Motions in the morning. It also appears that the criminal case he is presiding over has three defendants, no doubt with three sets of lawyers plus the County Attorney. That alone increases voir dire by a factor of three. Jury selection in this case should have started the first thing in the morning. The Court Administrator, and to some extent, the Judge is at fault in creating the avoidable situation of yesterday. This is just not the situation everywhere.

OK, so we don’t have courthouses with courtrooms on seven floors and at least five different juries being selected from the same jury pool, but in Iowa, jury members are treated with a lot more consideration than I experienced in Tucson.

I was able to locate the Court Calender (not everyone would know where to look for it, nor realize that it is public information) and saw that Judge Lee had Motions in the morning. It also appears that the criminal case he is presiding over has three defendants, no doubt with three sets of lawyers plus the County Attorney. That alone increases voir dire by a factor of three.

Jury selection in this case should have started the first thing in the morning. The Court Administrator, and to some extent, the Judge is at fault in creating the avoidable situation of yesterday.

]]> by: Spencer http://www.greenvalleymoments.com/jury-duty-continued/#comment-293 Wed, 30 Nov 2005 08:53:40 +0000 http://www.greenvalleymoments.com/jury-duty-continued/#comment-293 You're a lawyer and all this surprises you? Having been summoned to jury duty a number of times (and served once), I've always thought it's a wonder that every juror at every trial isn't so p-ss-d off by how they are treated that they don't just flat refuse to play the game and reach a verdict. You can be sure the lawyers and judges and pretty much everybody connected with the trial but the jurors gets treated with respect and gets a place to park. But the jurors, in the end, are just the poor dumb jerks who decided to play along with the system and show up. Why should they be treated like anything other than cattle? You’re a lawyer and all this surprises you? Having been summoned to jury duty a number of times (and served once), I’ve always thought it’s a wonder that every juror at every trial isn’t so p-ss-d off by how they are treated that they don’t just flat refuse to play the game and reach a verdict. You can be sure the lawyers and judges and pretty much everybody connected with the trial but the jurors gets treated with respect and gets a place to park. But the jurors, in the end, are just the poor dumb jerks who decided to play along with the system and show up. Why should they be treated like anything other than cattle?

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