I had to call the night before. They said I should go in so I did. They sat us in a room and gave us stickers saying we’re jurors and referred to us by daily numbers and we watched an orientation video. Then we sat in that room for about an hour waiting for the court to get ready. Then once it was, they guided us upstairs and 14 of us were turned into a jury panel while the rest of us were the jury pool or something.

The judge gave us an overview of the case. Who the defendant was, their charges, and made it clear that these charges were not evidence and nor should they be considered as anything indicating guilt.

The judge asked the jury panel a few questions, and said that all of us in the jury pool should think about our answers. After the Judge’s questions, he can dismiss someone for cause, then pull someone out of the pool to replace them and continue questioning. Anyone dismissed was free to check out and leave.

Then the prosecutor asked questions. Stuff about the case, our experiences, what we look for when listening to witnesses and what we look for as evidence. What we consider “beyond a reasonable doubt” means. Then when he was done, he let the defense ask questions. He asked similar ones but while the prosecutor was looking at bias against the evidence or the kinds of witnesses (cops), the defendant looked more for bias in favor of those.

Once both were done, the judges can move to dismiss for cause if they have cause and they also had a number of free dismissals they could use for whatever reason. If they dismissed anyone, they called more people from the pool then questioning started with prosecution again and then the defense and so on.

Repeat until both council either choose not to dismiss anyone or presumably are out of dismissals, they then choose that jury panel as the final jury. Everyone else could check out while the jury stayed and presumably got some more detailed info.

I wasn’t part of it. We went down to the room we started in and checked out. They told us we had no further obligations during the rest of our serving time (which was stated on the summons) and we didn’t need to call in again or go in. If you needed a sheet to show you went for your employer, they would give you one.

Our payout was less than 20 bucks for that day. But it was above 20 for any subsequent day serving.

You sit in a room and wait while they show you Mrs. Doubtfire. Then you hope you don’t get picked, then you go to lunch, come back, hope you don’t get picked, and at the end of the day they pay you $15, which parking at the courthouse costs you $12. That’s about it.

1. They normal per diem payment is very low, way below minimum wage. In my jurisdiction in California, there’s some way for low income people to request an extra payment if they had to miss work, but it’s still pretty low.

2. It’s pretty easy to temporarily get out of jury duty by claiming hardship (you have something else going on). They usually approve such requests and summon you again sometime later. IDK what happens if you keep repeating this.

3. In practice if you really don’t want to serve, you can answer the questions in a way that make you sound like a biased juror in either direction. I saw a guy do that, basically saying that cops lie all the time (he got dismissed).

4. Selection often takes longer than 1 day. Last time I got summoned I think I had to show up for 3 or maybe 4 days of preliminaries and jury selection. I got dismissed (thankfully) basically because I was very sleepy on the last day and (unintentionally, I was generally trying to play it straight) gave unfocused answers.

5. Your summons is a postcard with your juror number on it (8 digits iirc) and you’re supposed to bring it, but if you forget to bring the card, they can find the info for you.

6. In my jurisdiction the sequence is, a) you get the postcard saying you’re summoned for a certain week (monday thru friday). There’s a phone number you’re supposed to call sunday night, monday night, etc. You enter your juror number and the IVR either says “show up tomorrow” or “don’t show up tomorrow but call again tomorrow night” or (if it’s thursday night) “don’t show up tomorrow, thanks, bye” (in this case you’re off the hook for 1 year). b) In the event they say “show up tomorrow”, 100-200 people show up in a big room with free watery coffee. A few times during the day they will call 50 or so people from the room by juror number and tell them to go to courtroom 3 (or whatever). Anyone who doesn’t get sent to a courtroom gets sent home and is done for the year. I.e. you don’t have to show up to the big room multiple days. c) if you’re sent to a courtroom, you’re in jury selection, which can take multiple days. They select groups of potential jurors to ask questions (voir dire) while everyone else waits around. When they have enough jurors and alternates, anyone left gets sent home. Sometimes they run out of people to question and have to get more from the big room. d) if you’re actually seated on the jury, the trial can potentially go on for months, which sounds awful. Most are quicker than that though. Trials are usually 4 days a week, I think, and they can have breaks in the middle.

7. During jury selection and trials, there are multiple 15 minute bathroom breaks through the day. The bathrooms on the floor where the courtroom is get crowded during those breaks. The trick at my local courthouse is to use the stairwell to get to a different floor. The other floors’ bathrooms are usually not crowded.

8. You spend a lot of time in crowded rooms where the air quality is not that great. These days I seriously recommend wearing an N95 respirator the whole time, because of airborne pathogens. I wore one last time as did a few other people (most didn’t) and nobody bothered us about it.

I haven’t yet actually served on a jury but have been summoned multiple times. Usually you get dismissed without entering jury selection, sometimes without even having to show up, as described above. I’ve been in jury selection several times and only in voir dire once.

Oh regarding your question of an NDA: you’re under a strict NDA (even if you’re not seated on the jury) until the trial finishes, but after that, you can talk about it. The judge explicitly tells the jury as part of the concluding remarks that they are now released from their oath. Lawyers from both sides of interesting cases try to interview the jurors to find out what they discussed during deliberations, in the hope of sharpening their techniques (i.e. manipulation skills) for their future trials. I decided long ago that I’d refuse to participate in such an interview.

There was a juicy federal case a few years ago where the jury convicted the person (a government official), and also privately made arrangements with the judge so they were immediately whisked away in a van from the courthouse afterwards. Lawyers and media who wanted to talk to them were left empty handed. I laughed.

Are people really getting the jury duty pay? It seems laughably low, is it even minimum wage?

I’ve always worked at salaried jobs that offer up to three paid days for jury duty. It’s the same request form as taking a vacation day. However I have no idea what happens if I were actually selected

Edit to Google

• the three days is a state mandate
• afterwards the state pays $50/day
• minimum wage is $15/hr, so unless it’s three hour days, they’re paying paying below minimum wage

I guess it’s not really meant to be pay: it would cover you transportation and food costs

In my experience, you show up at 7am to find they cancelled it. I’m not sure how it’s happened every time I’ve been summoned.

I got a bunch of jury summonses but not since I said the wrong thing ….

Jury duty is usually a non-event since most trials are settled but they have to be prepared for all to continue to trial. The expectation is short since most trials are days. I’ve never been summoned to grand jury but my ex-mother-in-law was

You get a summons in the mail

• call the night before, in case it’s cancelled
• show up at 7am , with reading material
• listen to instructions about taking it seriously
• sit in a smelly waiting room
• about lunch time, they know how many cases are going to trial, so most people get dismissed.

Out of maybe 8 summonses, I only got selected once. The judge asks some basic questions in front of the lawyers so they can decide whether to accept you. Then I got nervous and way over-think it, and spew forth some ridiculous stream of words that got me cancelled

Sit in a chair for 4 hours while lawyers speak in hushed voices to the judge and each other. Break for lunch. Sit in a chair for 4 hours while lawyers speak in hushed voices to the judge and each other. Go home.

As for an actual trial, I’ve never seen one that wasn’t on TV.

I have been called up to jury duty in a few states now and once in federal court. Probably 10 times in total.

When I was traveling all the time, I was usually out of the country on the weeks when they wanted me for a trial. I deferred an few times and eventually was excused without showing up.

The couple of times I was called into the jury selection:

Once I was excused because the trial was supposed to last 3 weeks and I was traveling the next week.

Another time I was excused when the prosecutor asked me about my work and education experience. He puckered up real hard when I mentioned I had worked in statistics and genetics and requested I be excused. It was pretty comical to be honest. Apparently

The federal court was a bit different. The court was a 6 hour drive away. My kids were young at the time and I was permanently excused on the questionnaire because I had minors to take care of. The questionnaire was pretty intense too.

My wife finally got her first summons this past week.

How can there be a punishment for not appearing?

Mail goes missing all the time, or is opened late, or the resident is travelling away from home.

It depends on where you are. In my area, it is absolute torture, because they ask people the juror selection questions individually. One by one. Imagine a room of 150 people all sitting there as each person is called up and asked 10 questions privately. It took a whole day. The payout is $12 per day- lunch. Thankfully my employer paid me for the day.

You can imagine how, if a jury needs 10 people, when you call 150, if you have any excuse, you’ll get excused. In my area, juries are for people who want to be there.

So it is very dependent on your location with the exception of Federal jury duty which is pretty consistent. If you are out of state for school you can get an automatic exemption for that since I was selected in college once and didn’t need to show up.

I was called for county civil court a couple years ago. You get a letter with a phone number to call the night before to see if you need to show up. If you do then you park downtown/take the bus/etc and bring your letter (and usually a book or something else to do for the day). You sit in a large room with about 50-100 people where you get checked in by a clerk where you get a number (usually alphabetical by last name) . A judge comes in around 9am and tells everyone how important it is, thanks you for showing up and explains the process. We did have a handful of folks show up late due to issues with the light rail that morning which were allowed. The list of no shows was provided to the sheriff to issue fines after a certain point.

We then got a paper questionnaire to complete to help speed up voir dire and handed them in to the clerk, each had our juror selection number on it. Then you wait. The room had a small breakroom like area connected to it with tables, vending machines, and water fountains as well as restrooms for potential jurors to use throughout the day. We weren’t allowed to leave the room at all during this time.

After the attorneys finished reviewing papers we were called in groups of about 20 to walk to the courtroom for interviews. We were verbally asked at that point if there was a reason we could not serve for the case which was expected to take less than a week. Reasons were written down but no excuses were given at this point.

After the interview you went back and waited. At lunch you were permitted to leave for an hour and had to check in when you returned. Around 3pm they called numbers of who was selected and 2 alternates (I was the second alternate). Everyone else was dismissed and we were walked back to the courtroom to talk with the judge. He told us when to show up the following day and again thanked us for serving.

The pay for my state is only milage travelled and for the selection day and 3 days of trial was something like $25 total which didn’t even cover parking for me. It’s set by the state and there hasn’t been a push to update it. The judge did order lunch for all the jurors during the deliberation time (which was about an hour, I think so everyone could eat, I wasn’t in the deliberation room as an alternate but it was a really clear case).

We were told not to talk about the trial to anyone while it was ongoing. Even family or friends less it influence our judgement. Afterwards we were told it was up to us if we discussed it with anyone, we didn’t have to but were allowed. The attorneys both asked for some feedback on how they did which I provided to hopefully help them get better.

I only got a summons once. I got picked for the jury and the trial was the next day. The trial was all wrapped up in one day. There were about 200 people in the initial room, and periodically they would read a list of numbers that should go to a courtroom for jury selection, or they would read a long list of numbers and those people could go home.

Like 25 of us got called into the courtroom for jury selection. Only one person tried the acting crazy gambit, and she did end up getting excused, but the judge just sent her back to the main room and told her to wait until the end of the day in case any other cases needed her. I interpreted this as punishing her for wasting his time rather than her actually being needed. A couple others had legit excuses for not being able to serve and did get to go home.

I don’t remember getting paid. I do remember them talking about there being a per diem, but I think that was only if it went past like 5 days. I don’t think there was any compensation for the people who waited all day without getting picked. My employer allowed me a certain number of days of jury duty that they still paid me before that kicked in, but I don’t know if that was mandatory or just a nice benefit. I was on my own for parking and lunch. But I did get a fancy certificate.

There’s a very strict admonishment to not discus the case while it is ongoing. I don’t know if it’s technically called an NDA, but I did sign something that says I got the message and there could be penalties for violating it. After the case is over you can say whatever you want about it.
Most people I know who get the summonses call a number listed on the card the night before and get told don’t come in after all.

Edit: dang, paragraphs.