has anyone here been summoned for Grand Jury Duty?

you sound like you have more stress in a court room than I do (not lol)
I genuinely believe my blood pressure is higher in a court room over bike racing.
they do question you in a room talking to the judge once you say hardship ... more anxiety

 

Well, some more detail. The tenure was to be like a year? (it was about 20 years ago). It was in the early part of my marriage, I was working in NYC in an executive position and my husband and I had an apartment near Philly where he was working and I went out every weekend. No doubt it was a hardship, as it would be for anyone. But the tenure made sense to me in a certain sense given the nature of the cases being presented; they were long, complex, and you don't want to be starting from Adam and Eve with every iteration and evolution with a new audience. Plus, it was intellectually interesting to me, so I said, well, I'll just make room and sleep less.

So, I heard I want to say three cases during my tenure. After the third one, we had the weekend off, I went into work and wrote a letter to the presiding judge explaining why I could not in good conscience continue to participate.

Without getting into the details of the cases, the abject pandering to and coddling of the juries was flat out appalling. My breaking point came when I realized two members of the jury were sleeping (audibly snoring) during testimony, and then voted to indict. Immoral, and so my participation is also immoral.

Next week rolls around, I refuse to participate, have head juror (semi-attractive local weather guy, lol) wheedle me, no, chief jury babysitter implore me (some people concentrate better when they have their eyes closed, GTFO, lol) and off I go the the Chief Judge with a court reporter.

He acquitted himself well (as he would, he ended up being U.S. Attorney General), but the more blase about this malingering conduct people blew off, the more angry I got. And I wasn't some billy badass, I was nervous and scared. There was one point during our conversation where he remarked that my comment about the jury not reading the indictment was not germane because the particulars of an indictment tend to not be especially illuminating. I shot back that, well, you'd have to read it to know that. We were across a long conference table, I looked at him, and he looked at me, and I think that is the moment when he knew I absolutely meant I will not participate. In my internal dialogue, I was thinking, my father was a soldier for 30 years, he retired as a SGM, and he didn't have any sons. It is going to take considerably more than a stern look and a robe to intimidate me.

Wow, I haven't thought about that in forever. Thanks for letting me share! Lol, what the hell am I talking about, you dudes don't read shit.

P.S. The judge let me know that I would still be eligible for State jury... somehow when that happened, my latest edition of Guns and Ammo showed up the prior evening. Lol.

 

If you hadn't elucidated, I would have requested it.

 

It comes off the voter registration roles.....once HR1 is passed that will have to be changed.....

 

crazy shit there i like the robe part lol.

just got called in for next friday FML.

 

You'll choose your spot.. I believe in you.

 

Say hi to my cousin

 

Joe Pesci is the man.

Too bad he got made unofficially

 

Would you want them if it was your ass on the line?

 

Might have to pull some out of prison to set.

 

Whether someone has a job or not at the time probably doesn't mean a whole hell of alot after the attorneys have done all their sifting through of potential jury members.