My guess is that I’ve thought more about jury duty than most folks. With my dad being a trail lawyer and our shared love of Perry Mason, I’ve known about juries from childhood.
About 35 years ago I got a summons for jury duty but despite sitting patiently in the basement of the Government Center every day for a week, I didn’t get impaneled. On Friday afternoon they released me and said I didn’t need to return.
Right before Christmas I got the Summons in the mail. Things have changed somewhat in 35 years (doh!). The biggest change is that you don’t have to show up on Monday morning and sit all week. You get assigned a group number and twice a day you check online (or call in) to see if your group needs to go in. One thing that hasn’t changed much is the stipend. It’s not enough to pay for parking downtown (which is just outrageous) so if you are on a fixed income, if you drive and park, it’s like you’re paying to get on a jury. I took the bus.
My group didn’t get called in until mid-day on Thursday (12:15 notice that you have to be at the Government Center at 1:30). The waiting area is now on the 24th floor and is referred to as “The Jar”. Hmmmm. There were 33 of us in the room; orientation took 15 minutes and at 2 p.m. they pulled the first group of 22. That left 11 of us, not enough for a jury. I assumed at some point 10 folks would come back and then there would be enough of us if they needed to call a new group. Nope, at 2:15, the 11 of us left in the room were sent home and told we didn’t need to come back in the morning or the following week. Our service is complete – we won’t be eligible again for 4 years. (This puts me above the required age limit so I can decline with no reason if I get called again.)
45 minutes of jury duty. I spent more time on the bus than doing my civic duty. And if you add all the time I spent researching how it works these days, rates at downtown parking ramps, bus routes and senior discounts not to mention the weather….. way more prep time than jury time.
I’m not begrudging the time – I do actually think of it as my civic duty. I know I wouldn’t want to be on trial and have it go wrong because you couldn’t find enough folks for a jury. Although I do think it would have been more fun to actually get impaneled and see a real trial!
Any good jury duty stories?
Trail Baboon 
There are a couple of chuckles here.
I’ve gotten two letters but was never called. I’m aged out now but would still serve like “Old Guy” Juror #9 in 12 Angry Men.
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When you say, VS, “they pulled the first group of 22”, – does that mean there were 22 people they rejected?
Never been called. Did I move around too much? I would have loved to see the old process – doesn’t sound like much fun now.
My favorite Norman Rockwell – The Holdout: https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/06/the-rockwell-files-the-holdout/
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Try again –
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Norman+rockwell+painting+jury+duty#vhid=GT-OhNfb0SCQQM&vssid=_louXZ9q8MZahkPIPn6q92Qg_79
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One Angry Woman and Eleven Angry Men.
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Except she doesn’t look very angry…
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I’ve always loved Rockwell
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When a court case is ready to seat a jury, they bring between 16 and 20 people to the courtroom. Then they start selecting jurors. Once they’ve picked 12 jurors, the extra people go back to the waiting room. They do this so that if any jurors get rejected for whatever reason, there are extra people already in the room and they don’t have to waste time getting someone else from the waiting room to the courtroom. So in this case 22 people went down to the courtroom.
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I got the notice once and my wife twice. Each time, nothing came of it. A lot of sitting, waiting, and not making plans for that week or two in case you got called. But if called again, I will absolutely serve. No question. I’d love to be able to “officially” judge someone else! 😉
Chris in Owatonna
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What is the age at which one ages out? I imagine I’ve reached it. Too bad. I would willingly serve again, just to observe the process, if I were called.
I did serve, also about 35 years ago. The case was not particularly dramatic. The opposing parties were an individual who had been in a traffic accident and his insurance company, which was disputing his claims. Twelve of us were chosen for the jury, plus an extra in case there was a need for a replacement. When it came time for the trial, all thirteen were in the jury box and the thirteenth was also present for the deliberations.
As you can imagine, the proceedings were somewhat dry and technical. Some of the discussion revolved around the degree the claimant was at fault for the mishap. Ultimately we were going to be asked to determine the percentage of his claim to which he would be entitled.
The jury deliberations were surprising to me. We were a mixed group, both in terms of age and gender (but as I recall, all white). What surprised me was the complete inability of about half the jury to reason, based on the information we were given and only that. The discussions ranged from what jury members imagined might have happened to what they thought ought to have happened to what had happened once to a cousin and, in light of that, what they thought would be fair. I was a little shocked to see how other people’s minds worked or didn’t work. The jury foreman and I worked to corral as well as we could these stray and irrelevant opinions into one limited to the evidence as presented. There was one jury member who was especially intractable. It was the thirteenth—the spare. She was a teacher by trade, which was a little surprising because she was utterly immune to focused reason.
In the end, the twelve of us compromised with her to reach an agreement. It was a lower percentage of the claim than we would have otherwise granted.
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Here in Ohio, I aged out at being over 70. But the new law, from July 2024, raised the age to 75. So I’m unsure if my name is back in the pool. No matter. As long as I can drive myself, I’ll serve.
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In Hennepin County, you don’t necessarily age out but once you hit 70, you can request to not serve and you don’t need to have any excuse or have anyone sign for you. You can still be on a jury after your 70th.
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Yikes! (to Bill’s story)
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I have been called several times. I have never served. No one wants a psychologist on a jury, especially if it involves criminal trial. My nightmare case would be a really boring one involving mineral rights or land claims or the like. I was supposed to sit on a jury two weeks ago, and I knew the defendent in my work at my agency, but thankfully the case was postponed to April.
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I didn’t worry too much that I might not be approved as a juror unless of course, it was a case of eminent domain. My father basically wrote the book on eminent domain for the state of Missouri, and I’m sure that the state would not think I could be an impartial juror. I’m not sure I could either!
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Aside from the obvious instances of partiality, I wonder what lawyers look for in selecting a jury. In the case of my experience, the lawyer for the plaintiff missed the boat. It was not an impressive group. But then, I don’t know the people who were rejected. Maybe we were “the best horses in the glue factory”. Depressing to think so.
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I was called once, I think it was about the beginning of December. The first day I called in, we were told we would not be needed for the duration.
Kelly received her summons a few months later. That was just as covid hit. I don’t remember if she even had to call in or everyone was released before that.
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Rise and Shine, Baboons,
I have never been called to jury duty, so I have no personal experience with this. However, when I worked for Scott County as a Social Worker the jury pool room was down the hall. Generally, the pool was quiet with many people bringing books, then reading quietly. But several times there were groups that were rowdy and having a wonderful time. Card games were especially loud and fun to overhear. It sounded like a loud, drunken party but they were probably mostly sober.
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Re: the header photo. Raymond Burr was the face of lawyers during the runs of his shows. He sure was handsome, only out done by James Garner who was even more so, in my opinion.
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Yes, whenever I think of attorneys, I think of Raymond Burr (after my dad, of course).
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then call couple times you’ve done a jury one time we talked about it on here before interesting Saint Paul case of dealings with the guy who lived above the CC tap on India in Minneapolis, that was interesting enjoyable I got called one other time got sent home and most recently. I got called to Serv on the grand jury and wasn’t told that it was gonna take me a half an hour to get through security to get up to the courtroom so when I got there, they were half pissed that I was late and gave me number 40 out of 40 possible gears sent me home and never called me so what I can say is I just called once I got to serve and two other non eventful ones
i love perry mason too
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