What a terrible way to start the day. I wake up, check the mail and there’s a wierd envelope from the 17th Judical Circuit Court. Fairly certain I haven’t committed any major crimes the justice system would have indisputable evidence to lead to conviction I knew exactly what the letter contained.
I have been selected for Jury Duty….
The one thing I’ve noticed when reading all the paper work is how RUDE they are. On the first line they refer to my person as “Term #31 Juror”. I have a freakin name they addressed a letter to my house! They also write this documentation like I have no idea how to read or find what is important in a selection of writing. Every other sentence has either bold or bold underline or CAPITOL UNDERLINE even BOLD CAPITOL UNDERLINE font and poorly executed exclamation points. The best part is the least important part of information (Jury Clerk’s name) is in the largest font size and bolded….ugh….pffft…sigh….eh….
Here is an example of this travesty….
“You cannot postpone your service, after Thursday, July 26th, 2007!”
Give me a freaking break. I understand there maybe others that need assistance and have a hard time understanding this document but if they want to help only underlining “cannot” “postpone” and “after” they should have just gone ahead and underlined the date.
I’m just bitter. The court doesn’t pay you jack crap, I’m going to have to waste vacation days to take care of this, and of course it’s in the middle of the summer. Nowhere in these documents is there a “thank you”. After going though these documents and filling out the paper work I can see why Jury Duty is so loathed. Regardless if anything comes up I’ll just postpone my serve date. 
UPDATE: Upon getting to work and reading my employers “Jury Duty and Witness Pay” policy I will not have to take PTO/vacation to appear in court. I will get paid my normal rate for hours missed for up to 90 days. This news makes this process at least a little bet better. I’ll post my experiences….
Actually, i am almost certain that employers have to give you paid time off for jury duty. so, you shouldn’t have to waste your vacation days.
Plus with michigan (Grand rapids, specifically), it would probably be an in and out type of case for something like “assault and battery”.
You’ll be out 1 day Max. probably a half day.
Sopranoe4 is correct. It’s illegal to force an employee to take personal vacation time for being a servant of the state. They have to pay you, even for the transportation time to get you to and from service.
Just do what I did and show up drunk. They never called me back.
Oh ya, :-*
Back when I was a temp for the company I’m at now, I was an hourly worker and just didn’t get paid for the days that I didn’t/couldn’t come in and that includes jury duty.
Of course, now that I’m a regular employee, the circumstances are a bit different. I’d actually be a little suprised if your company didn’t offer you some sort of compensation.
I like te whole “sho up drunk” argument. You could also immediately yell out “Hang the Bastard.” This will also work. Especially if it’s a larceny case.
Most of these guys plead down their charge. So, the odds of you actually sitting in the jury box for an actual trial are slim to non. And be careful with excuses. Judges and lawyers can spot you lying.
You could take a swing at the judge.
FLO - The last thing I’m going to do is lie even though I do agree with yelling out random obscenities and being drunk in the court room. I hope the trial I get on is the guy who stole our f**king lawn mower.
Gunbunnie - Like always you are right I edited my post regarding my employers jury duty policy.
Still waiting for kramer’s response help me lawyer.kramergoo
Have Flo rent the extremely enjoyable Pauly Shore film, “Jury Duty”. Seriously, if this was me, I would be so unbelievably furious. Fuck civic duty, fuck the U.S. court system, and fuck Bobby Donnell for not being real. Just because you’re older than 24 and past your prime, I would almost guarantee you have to serve as a juror in some high profile murder case. Then you’ll get some fat Jimmy Berlutti motherfucker. I’m sorry this happened to you vanlandw.
I’m actually disappointed I’ll probably never get called for jury duty.
There are plenty of ways to get out of it, without making an ass of yourself, although they’re less fun. Basically, if you appear to be unable to consider both sides, one side will want to get rid of you. If it’s a lawn mower theft case, tell them you’re still pissed about getting yours stolen. You should go for it though. You don’t have you use time off, you get paid (not much) and you might get something really interesting.
Not that I recommend you trying to get out of your civic duty.
As far as time goes, most trials only take 1-2 days, tops. Unless you get a murder case or something like that.
After reading my work policy I’ve calmed down about everything to be honest. My boss understood and knowing I don’t need to take vacation time is a plus and I will get my regular pay is nice plus some extra change f/ the state.
Maybe I will get an interesting case who knows. I will turn in my requested paperwork tonight and hopefully they will say they don’t want me at all
And you make a good point I’m sure I won’t get some mammoth trial or anything. You are kramer
vanbergs - you are right knowing my luck I’ll get the grand rapids version of OJ and be sequestered for like 10 months
somebody stole you guys’ lawnmower?
Vanlandw’s car got tossed. brb ipods. Lawnmowers.
perhaps it is time to invest in doors that lock.
my employer pays my regular rate for jury duty, LESS the amount I actually make by showing up. *sigh*
oh and vanbergs: “Fuck civic duty, fuck the U.S. court system”. You moron.
I think jury duty would be interesting. Even though it would be a complete pain in the ass.
EmoTeee sighed. This is no good.
An aquaintance of mine had to go to jury duty, and they had free wifi in the courthouse. He eventually was able to just go home without having to serve, but in the meantime, he hung out on IRC.
Nerd justice!
Bun - You like our court system? Please don’t make me swear at you uncontrollably.
Why should the burden of pay be placed on the employer? I can understand requiring employers to maintain your position. But, why should they have to pay you for time that you aren’t there?
I’d imagine because people getting sucked into long court thingies can’t afford to not get paid.
Imagine getting stuck in court for 90 days, and off work, and you were ‘barely scraping by’. Mortgages don’t pay themselves! Employers can probably get some sort of tax deductions or crap for money paid out for jury duty.
AT the very least, certainly a company can deal with the losses far more easily than a single employee.
Well said Adam.
Jeff, I think the real question should be, “Should random people have to be pulled from their jobs to serve jury duty, when they need to work to live?”
There are people out there living paycheck to paycheck. Some of those people have house or car payments or even student loans. Some of those people even have children to feed. How about you tell a mother of two that works at WalMart to just “dip into her savings for a while so she can ride it out?”
Plus, getting paid for jury duty is a perk like cheap health/dental/eye care insurance rates and 401k’s. It’s not necessary, but it’s good for morality and it instills company loyalty.
Jury Duty is bullshit. What they pay you doesn’t even cover parking downtown so you can be at the damn courthouse!
Vanberge also forgot about Flo’s bike getting stolen too :-[.
Wes, you should just say “brb, going to England.”
I wonder what would happen if I got called to service as well :-[. Uh oh.
Gato - I’m fairly certain you could get exempted for, you know, being OUT OF THE FRIGGIN COUNTRY. Course, then you’re letting the terrorists win.
My point was basically just that the burden should not be placed specifically on business. Not that people shouldn’t be compensated for time. The right to be tried by a jury of your peers is critically important. And, I think the burden of compensating juries should be distributed across the populous (obviously people should be compensated based on their qualified rates).
fulljeff is just an amazing apologist for big government
Hardly. The role of the government is as follows (by order of importance):
1. Protect Property Rights
2. Maintaining Legal and Social Framework (Stability)
3. Compensating for Market Inefficiencies (maintain competition/adjusting for externalities)
4. Providing Public Goods and Services
Jeff - You forgot the REAL #1: Providing enough baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire and being kind enough to jam them into each American’s asshole, while secretly charging us money for it.
To a degree I agree with “Jeff” that the courts/government should cover more of the jury time costs for jurors. My letter says they would pay $40 dollars for a full day of work. Me going to my job would make more then double that working less. $40 dollars a day isn’t even worth my time. I understand the “duty” of being a juror but they make it seem like an ‘expectancy’ of the duty. At this point in my life I never foresee myself ever requiring any other Americans to be a juror for me.
Regardless I’ve mailed in my notice and will await to see if I’m “selected”.
bergs, that is not a role of the government. It is just something they decided to do on their own.