People plucked off streets, picked for emergency jury duty

Greeley Tribune ^ | January 17, 2008 | Andrew Villegas

[Eroteme]

Administrator: I have an emergency summons for you. You must go to the court right now.

Me: Do you have a gun?

Administrator: No.

Me: Do you know who I am?

Administrator: No.

Me: Goodbye. (Going on about my business.)
***

LOL. Pretty much sums it up.

The fact they were able to get so many to comply is astonishing, and a little troubling. Women just went with strangers claiming to be officers of the court? I'd wager not one of them knew what an official summons or ID looked like.

[GladesGuru]

Greely is not too far, either geographically or philosophically, from Boulder. Boulder Liberals are so whacked out that their behavior has earned the term “Boulder Dementia Syndrome”.

Inbred idiocy has long been a part of the ‘Front Range Fringe’ populations. Greely was named for Horace Greely, a newsie of the day who was enthralled by a French socialist who believed that “ . . when Man reached the proper level of socialist awareness, the wild beasts will willingly serve him and the seas will turn to lemonade . .”.

To some very limited extent, that has come to pass: wild beasts (cougar) are serving ‘Front Range Fringe’ people for dinner. One could argue this is not quite what Greely and his Guru meant. In any case, tell it to the cougars.

It may interest the FR community that the Frenchman Greely followed was confined to a home for the perpetually bewildered for much of his life. He was, so to speak, a member of the Rubber Room set.

If ‘Front Range Fringe’ members aren’t willing to shoulder their duties as jurymen, one can’t help wondering why Judgie Pooh didn’t have some ossifer of Da Law pick them up, rather than hapless passersby.

Bah, Humbug!

Sorry, my bad - make that Bah Humbuggery!

We are talking about Liberals, after all.

[jmax]

Think if they drug me in as a juror like that, they would later wish they had not. I would sit in the jury box and do several things while the trial was going on: belch, scratch my crotch, let gas, take off my shoes and socks to trim my toe nails with a big pocket knife, hiss at the defendent to get his attention and when he looks, I annimate with my hand pulling a noose tight around my neck, blow kisses to all the ladies, raise my hand to the judge every 10 minutes and say I need to go to the rest room, sneak a call on my cell phone to order 10 pizza's from Pizza Hut to be delivered to the judge in the court room, etc, etc.

They may have second thoughts about grabbing jurors off the street, next time.

[pepperhead]

This sucks, people shouldn’t just be pulled off the streets like this. They should have at least been given as much time as those people who didn’t show up to get all their work and family commitments straightened out.

[Petronski]

They can summon you, but they can’t prohibit you from vowing during voir dire to be completely capricious and biased at trial.

“Do you know the plaintiff or defendant, or have any association with them?”

“No, but the defendant looks guilty as hell. It’s going to be fun convicting him. Is the jury box an iPod no-go zone?”

[GladesGuru]

“I think that professional juries could still be used.”

I would have to disagree. “Professional Juries” would violate the right of Americans to be tried by a jury of their peers.

Serving on a jury is not “one step above slavery”. Rather, it is the essential step to assure that the citizens make the final decisions on law as it is applied to their fellow citizens.

That is why we still have jury nullification.

[Petronski]

Better yet:

“Hell yeah they’re guilty. The police wouldn’t arrest anyone innocent. Can we vote now?”

[Brilliant]

My immediate reaction to being whisked off the street to do jury duty would be this: “Guilty.”

No need to hear evidence for me.

You wonder why a judge would consider such a jury to be unbiased.

[dfwgator]

They may have second thoughts about grabbing jurors off the street, next time.

And after the judge throws you in the pokey for Contempt of Court, you would have second thoughts about belching in court.

[RockinRight]

I have gotten a jury duty summons in the mail twice. Both times I was excused from it, once for school finals and once for work obligations I couldn’t get out of.

Duty aside, a lot of people just CANNOT do jury duty - take off work an unspecified length of time and lose all that income, or scramble to find a babysitter for an unspecified length of time...

Which leaves people on juries who are either:

retired (OK)
unemployed (depends WHY but not always a good choice for a fair conviction)
crazy
insanely interested in the court system (again, could be good or bad)
has a job that’s rather “unimportant” and therefore, just by statistics, is likely to be less educated

[RockinRight]

I’d love to do it. Right now though I quite frankly can’t afford the time off work and my family comes first.

[Brilliant]

If this were the Great Depression and no one had a job anyway, then I see no problem with it.

[Uri’el-2012]

Typical liberals:

"punish the innocent and let the guilty go free"

or we have to power to punish the innocent.

[Muleteam1]

The last jury I sat on was in liberal Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Except for trying to find parking around the courthouse at Annapolis each day, it was a “hoot!” I was not the foreman but, once we went to deliberations, he did ask that I be the first to give my opinion of the case. It was a case involving a vehicle accident where one woman was suing another for illegally turning in front of her. The problem was that the plaintiff was obviously withholding evidence from the jurors. We were only allowed to see some of the damages on the defendant’s car. My opinion was that the lawsuit may have had merit but without sufficient evidence, it was simply a case of "she said she said." Each succeeding juror to give their opinion felt the same way and the plaintiff walked away with some stiff legal fees.

[Daffynition]

Taking a cue from Vermont?

[Muleteam1]

My answers would probably diqualify me as well but my primary argument is that no one has ask me any questions in twenty years.

[Muleteam1]

>>He counts it as one of the most fascinating and gratifying experiences of his life!<<

As I have related in another post, my jury experience has been extremely limited, but I would agree with your dad.

[SJSAMPLE]

You’ve never heard of a “straw man” argument?

It’s an argument that offers no immediate weight and only serves to detract from the merits of a true argument.

Google the internets.

[xrmusn]

I would have to disagree. “Professional Juries” would violate the right of Americans to be tried by a jury of their peers.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
DEFINE PEERS
A true jury of my ‘peers’ would be someone who served in the Military, was in Communications, have been foreman, superintendent, estimator, owner in the Asphalt field, owner in the Transportation Field (Delivery), (used to) read 2+ papers daily, now get most news from Talk Radio (and the stations that carry the shows)and the net.
Am a white, passed retirement age, Conservative with Libertarian leanings....
Don’t forget, NO CLONES
The closest we have to a TRUE TRIAL BY PEERS is a change of Venue so that someone such as myself wouldn’t be ‘judged’ by
a panel put in place in say, Richmond VA where you would be hard pressed to empanel a jury of my TRUE PEERS

[SJSAMPLE]

Even with a job, a Citizen does have duties that outweigh monetary remuneration.

Now, if you’ve got a kid at the dentist or at home or something like that, I can see the po po giving you a waiver, but traditionally empaneled juries also place limitations on employment excuses.