Play up ur mad juror skilz by claiming that you can tell the accused is guilty just by lookin at 'em.
Ask whether you're allowed to take sharia law into account.
Figure out any possible way to work the fact that you're 1/16th arab cleric into voir dire. It's important that they know.
Along the lines of #2 and #3, there's still time to stop by the office and officially change your surname to "Al-Najafi".
Or what the heck, just go with "Al-Tikriti".
I hope it's a case like this one.
Further McCain stupidity:
Autism is caused by vaccines.
What an idiot.
Not being a U.S. citizen, I have no jury duty worries. My worries are more not being protected by several major constitutional amendments; being subject to deportation for arbitrary reasons; political disenfranchisement -- but of course I'm the same as all of you in those respects.
thimerosal is contained in the dilution buffer of the ELISA kit which i use, its data sheet warns against its toxicity
mercury poisoning could be really scary, i had my teeth fillings all changed to non-amalgam containing ones
i sometimes think my mom's MS could be caused by it, coz i remember when we were small once we broke the mercury thermometer and she cleaned it up
better safe than sorry, vaccines shouldn't may be contain that though of course all depends on the concentration may be
8: Yes, but 30 months later has to be considered worse.
I mean, at one point heliocentrism was perfectly respectable. Now, not so much.
Gonerill complains too much; could someone let Homeland Security know?
I wish you could volunteer for jury duty. would be a good way to spend those unemployed months.
Was in jury duty last week. The magic ticket out during voir dire for 3 people, myself not included? Answering "no" to "Can you be a fair and impartial juror?"
My one real serious experience with jury duty was one of those "lowered confidence in the system" dealios. (I was an alternate. so I sat through the trial, but was not needed for deliberations. Talked to a 'real" jury member later and they voted to convict for murder based on a total nutjob theory not even hinted at during the case. A red bandana was in a bush in one of the evidence pictures "so we figured it was a gang thing". Holy fucking christ.)
I was let go from jury duty because I admitted to having a lawyer for a father. It doesn't take a lot.
White People Like Getting Excused from Jury Duty.
Based on stories like 16, something I'm a bit humorless™ about at times.
I was in the pool for jury selection once, though my number wasn't called. There was at least one attorney on the jury they finally settled on.
I was glad not to have to go back for the second day, but at the same time I'm one of those rare people for whom jury duty would've been a lucrative opportunity. $13/day! Where else am I going to make that kind of money?
I tried to get on a jury a year ago, but no dice. Sad, too--I would have had so much fun with nullification (it was a drug case). I was already fantasizing about holding fast against 11 increasingly angry men and women, hitting them with the unanswerable: "Look, I'm a grad student. I can sit here and deliberate for weeks."
(The bottom line is: if you don't agree with the laws at issue, don't be an idiot and admit it to the judge, thereby ensuring that the jury will be composed of people predisposed to convict. Perjury's not always wrong.)
$13/day! Where else am I going to make that kind of money?
Clinical trials, Adam.
Also, I'm shocked that Oggedsville doesn't have wi-fi for the jurors. We did in D.C. (or at least we were able to pick it up from surrounding offices enough to replicate email/download RSS feeds.)
I'm shocked that Oggedsville doesn't have wi-fi for the jurors
They had a few computers with net access the last time I went, and I'll find out about this new location. What did you do, take a laptop? Anyway, my phone should suffice.
I took my laptop. I'd downloaded a bunch of articles to read in case I couldn't get a signal, but I did.
I got wireless service at the Brooklyn Supreme Court. They even advertised it on my summons, and I was shocked at how much happier that made me about going.
ogged, even if no WiFi, write up a live-blog and post it in its entirety when you get home. Obviously, this is a good idea.
It wouldn't let me click on any of apo's links, of course. Wah-wah!
As per 26, I recommend downloading the longest article ever written. Oh, and don't count on being allowed into the Unfogged c0ck directory, in case you wanted to pass the time with some old favorites.
I was on a great civil jury in D.C. that included two lawyers, a law student, and a law professor. (We made him forman.) The deliberations were serious and intelligent, and I felt we gave both sides a fair hearing and rendered a good verdict. Also, I was underemployed and was happy to spend a few days doing something interesting.
It was a personal injury case, and a guy in the juror pool made a point of pulling a Cato white paper on tort reform out of his briefcase during voir dire. He got to go home -- or back to work, sucka.
Also, I'm shocked that Oggedsville doesn't have wi-fi for the jurors.
They do. You have to pay like $5 for the day, but it's worth it. And yeah, I took my laptop (and did a bit of work from the jury room).
(and did a bit of work from the jury room).
Unamerican!
Actually, doing work when you don't have to sounds like the most American thing there is.
Eh, the environment wasn't really conducive to reading, and it's not like I was doing anything particularly difficult. Besides, by responding to e-mail I gave the impression of being really dedicated, which I could cash in on later.
14: If you're in California, you might try applying for the county grand jury. They appear to be a governmental watchdog; you get jury pay.
You know, they also have these things called "books."
Also, I'm shocked that Oggedsville doesn't have wi-fi for the jurors.
But all the courtroom dramas, not to mention the O. J. Simpson case insisted that jurors should know nothing of a case they sit on apart from what they hear int he court room. Isn't that a bit difficult if you can just google the alleged perp's details from the juror room?
And books may be nice, but laptop + Wi-Fi = acces to Gutenberg.org. which is many more books.
You really can only read one at a time.
I was selected for jury duty once.
The financial manager who thought he owned me simply made a (false) declaration to the court that the company that employed me was far too busy right now to let me do jury duty - and a (true) declaration to my line manager, that no one was going to be allowed to do jury duty as long as he was financial manager.
I was on a great civil jury in D.C. that included two lawyers, a law student, and a law professor.
Gosh, lawyers aren't allowed on juries here and I assumed it was the same all over the common law world. So no jury duty for me.
no one was going to be allowed to do jury duty as long as he was financial manager.
That should be a criminal offense, and one not eligible to be tried by a jury.
43: It is a criminal offense. But:
- He didn't say it to me: he said it to my line manager, and I heard about it via an admin worker who was within earshot when he said it.
- My line manager and the admin worker could, I suppose, have testified under oath that he said it.
-But they wouldn't have - because, even if both of them put the principle of jury duty above the risk of losing their jobs and getting tagged as a whistleblower/troublemaker, neither one of them would have wanted to see the company that employed them - and me - prosecuted, with the concommittent risk that everybody loses their jobs.
- Even I might not have, though I did think about it before I realised that all I had was a hearsay report that this was why I'd been told I should tell the jury service I couldn't do jury duty.
orientation speaker: "dnv." repeatedly.
thanks, apo.
three public computers; one being used for solitaire.
a russian dude, clearly a petty criminal, maybe former muscle. i'm still talking about the jury pool.
woman sitting next to me wants attention. keeps sighing overloudly, fidgeting.
russian dude accidentally sets off an alarm, looks sheepish, maybe an ok guy after all.
49 gets it exactly right. Despite being on the voter rolls since 1986, I didn't get summoned for jury duty until last year. And then the night before the day we were supposed to show for selection, they put up the message that all summoned jurors for that date were excused from duty.
My favorite jury story:
One holdout juror kept claiming that the woman must be making up the story of rape since EVERYONE knows that you cannot have sex standing up.
After hours of arguing with him, a female juror and a male juror told him that they were going to demonstrate how it could happen right there in the jury room.
Ogged, feel free to modify or use that story to get a little action in the jury room.
women behind me are chatting. one opines: happiness is very important.
woman next to me now accidentally bumping into me.
In my county they published some statistics last year about the percentage of whites v blacks that show up for jury duty. Enormous differential, blacks almost never come. Naturally, no explanatory or exploratory data as to reasons was published with those numbers.
See if she wants to have sex standing up. It's legally helpful.
indefinitely delayed. will update in case of sex.
Gosh, lawyers aren't allowed on juries here and I assumed it was the same all over the common law world. So no jury duty for me.
Nope, there are too many lawyers in D.C. to make that practical. Nor did having a cop for a brother-in-law and a public defender for a best friend mean anything for me. (Those I suppose you could suppose that they would cancel each other out. Which they did not. Shockingly, I'm a defense lawyer's dream juror.)
I would love to be on a jury. Nine years a litigator and I've never laid eyes on a working juror -- I haven't done many trials, and those I've been involved with have all been bench trials (judge, no jury).
But I've only been called for jury duty once, and never even made it to voir dire.
Sir Kraab:
What is happening in Texas??!?! We want to know.
Lost your chance to stand up for the rights of a wronged party!
You let us down, Ogged. You shamed Unfogged.
I have a standard rant about how founding era Americans (who had the right to vote, i.e. the propertied white males) thought their right to be on juries was as or more important than their right to vote, and were really concerned about the Constitution impinging on that right. This is partially because they could decide law as well as fact, and partially because of smaller communities where the people being tried probably would be not too far out of their social network, but anyway, people should recognize that their ability to be on a jury is a benefit, not a burden (just like voting).
64: Ditto almost everything, except that I qualify as a "litigator" only under the loosest of definitions. I get all ornery when people whine about how dumb juries are and then brag about how they managed to "get out of" jury duty.
except that I qualify as a "litigator" only under the loosest of definitions
This is one of those cultural things -- I'm a litigator because I work in the litigation department, on lawsuits, rather than in the corporate department on deals; from what I've gathered of your practice, you're a litigator if I am. I'd call someone with scary levels of courtroom skills a trial lawyer, rather than just a litigator, but 'litigator' as a word doesn't mean all that much beyond identifying an area of practice.
What is happening in Texas??!?!
I got a free doughnut from the Obama folks this morning.
Additional updates as events warrant.
Cold, glazed. Krispy Kreme-esque, but from a generic source.
I don't have much real info. Weather's clear across the state. I haven't heard of problems anywhere, although there could be in Houston. Polling places there were consolidated after the last election. If overcrowding drives people away, it'll hurt Obama. But hopefully enough people voted early that it won't be too bad.
My precinct was only moderately crowded, but I expect a lot of people here already voted.
Just about everyone I know is caucusing, including people who aren't especially politically active as a rule.
No one gave me any doughnuts here in Ohio! Boo.
How's the weather in Cleveland, foxytail?
71: I handle mostly appellate stuff, which you are probably correct is still "litigation" technically speaking. Still, it feels much more like transactional work...
77: Oh, I got it. Yeah, I guess I'd call you an appellate lawyer, come to think -- I do think of alitigator as someone who works largely at the trial level.
78: Appeals are still part of the litigation process, of course. I just like to be doubly extra sure no one ever mistakenly confuses me for someone who could competently handle discovery or deal with witnesses or the like.
1. Trial lawyer = someone who handles trials, generally poor.
2. litigator = paper pusher who makes lots of money
3. appellate lawyer = crazy-assed glutton for punishment
correction:
3. appellate lawyer = anti-social bookworm who would rather sit chained to a computer all day long than have to deal with other lawyers on any kind of regular basis.
additional correction:
3. appellate lawyer = lawyer who gets to poke fun of the other side's trial lawyer for totally irrelevant things like "not preserving the record," or "failing to make a contemporaneous objection," or "for being a blithering idiot."
further additional correction:
3. appellate lawyer = lawyer who has to try to find a delicate way of explaining why one's own trial lawyer is not a blithering idiot for "not preserving the record," or "failing to make a contemporaneous objection." (While at the same time trying to figure out how to ask the trial lawyers "What exactly is a status hearing?" without sounding like a blithering idiot oneself... )