Goddamit Jury service. Get outs?

[richardrsc]

OK just to finish this thread up on a happy note (and may be useful to others out there), we sent an email to the jury service explaining (very politely) that as a fairly specialist two-person company, taking 1 employee for an unspecified amount of time would be very likely to cause damage to the company.

Got an email back the next day & colleague had been excused.

Thanks for all the suggestions. It seems they are reasonable.

Edited by richardrsc on Saturday 15th October 11:21

[wibble cb]

Hmm, I have a team of 13 and have had 3 staff called for jury service in the last 2 months, its causing carnage!

[mr mac i]

I was called up for the local Sheriff Court (Scotland) earlier this year, a few days later I received a witness citation for a case at the High Court the very same week.

Quick call to the Sheriff Court 2 minutes on hold and 'Well since the High Court trumps us the Sheriff says you are excused...'.
High Court called the day before the case to say it was postponed due to earlier case over-runing, then a few weeks later to say I wasn't required for the start date but they would keep in touch. Saw the verdict and sentence in the paper this week.

http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transpo...

[spyder dryver]

p1stonhead said:

When I did it, two of the people on other cases were wearing pajama bottoms one of the days.......

That's bananas!

[akadk]

I'm half way through 2 weeks of jury service

so far, not been required to attend the court AT ALL

[Bright Halo]

A good friend of mine did jury service around ten years ago. He was actually quite excited to do it.
Unfortunately it turned out to be a child sex abuse case. It absolutely destroyed him, he has had psychiatric help and counselling but even a decade on he cannot get the case out of his head.

Does anybody think about the affect these cases have on the jury?

[21TonyK]

Bright Halo said:

Does anybody think about the affect these cases have on the jury?

Not me but a relative was called for a really horrific case which noticeably affected them and changed their whole demeanour, 10 years on they still won't talk about it.

I know the basics and that's more than enough to know that they should have accepted any help offered, not sure if it was.

[bga]

About 10 years ago my wife was a juror on a trial relating to the death of a child. Abuse and drugs were factors. To answer the question about considering the jurors, They were offered counselling after the trial & exempted from future jury service.

[Loyly]

I'd love to do jury duty. However, it wouldn't be a difficult experience for me, I'd just hand in guilty verdicts and be done with it ASAP.

[roofer]

Loyly said:

I'd love to do jury duty. However, it wouldn't be a difficult experience for me, I'd just hand in guilty verdicts and be done with it ASAP.

I think you need to be 18 before you get called up. You've a while to wait yet.

[PorkInsider]

bga said:

About 10 years ago my wife was a juror on a trial relating to the death of a child. Abuse and drugs were factors. To answer the question about considering the jurors, They were offered counselling after the trial & exempted from future jury service.

I did Jury service last year. Being in West Yorkshire I was assigned to Bradford Crown Court (a long way from where I live) for my stint. Oh what joy...

Anyway, I was on a case involving rape and other sexual abuse of 5 girls/women, some underage. We found the accused guilty on all counts and he got 24 years.

It was grim and the case went on for nearly 3 weeks but I think that the opportunity to see justice being done, and a proper sentence eventually dished out, helps with the emotional aftermath from seeing and hearing the evidence.

We were offered counselling and were given a letter from the judge excusing us from jury service for the next 5 years.

[Subbeh]

Loyly said:

I'd love to do jury duty. However, it wouldn't be a difficult experience for me, I'd just hand in guilty verdicts and be done with it ASAP.

I don't get why people get so stupid about it. Should any of us end up before a jury I'm sure we'd hope for reasonable people, paying attention and returning a verdict they'd actually seriously considered based on the evidence presented. Imagine having a few dheads like that on your jury!