Jury Duty

[Whitney]

I've never been called for jury duty before (aside from when I was in college and got out of it) but have a summons demanding that I do so and am slated to show up at the court house in a couple weeks.

How does the day of process work?  It asked my gender, birth date, race, and religion (n/a was not an option so I chose other).  I'm not sure how making me answer about my religion is legal; it is really none of their business (the other stuff is pretty obvious if you look at me).

I'm in Texas, what are my rights if asked to swear on a bible and/or to God?  What is the proper way to raise disagreement in such a case; I don't want to be held in contempt or go to jail.  I'd actually prefer not to swear at all..it's pointless, if someone wants to lie they are going to do so whether they swore and oath or not.  I don't think any swearing is required unless I'm selected but am not sure....plus I'd like to know in case I get stuck in the hell hole they call jury duty.

My husband thinks it is great that I get to have this "experience" and is "jealous" but he's a history/government geek...I'm not enthused at all.

[Tank]

[joeactor]

... when I lived in Texas, they used to have a check-box on the back of the summons that would let you out on mental grounds.
I checked it once, and never got called again!

I agree about the religion question, but it's one you could be asked during the selection process.

As for the bible, not sure there.

What I do know is that the laws and process differ by state, so it may be best to look into the official court sites...

[The Magic Pudding]

I think I've heard around here there is an option for witnesses to take a secular swearing option, it would be odd if jury members didn't have such an option.  Of course other jury members will know and will look at you funny.
If you do go to jail be sure we'll be protesting, I think I'll start composing a song for the cause just in case.

[Ulver]

I was called to jury duty last year, but they did not ask anything regarding my race/religion, just work information. I was not chosen, luckily.

I have heard of people in the GLBT community getting out of jury duty because they are second class citizens, denied rights... hey, maybe you can work it out somehow

[Ulver]

I think I've heard around here there is an option for witnesses to take a secular swearing option, it would be odd if jury members didn't have such an option.

I work in a court house and have never experienced a secular swearing option, but I would hope one existed here!

[fester30]

I'm in the Air Force and exempt from Jury Duty, but I've been to a few public trials to get a sense of what the legal system is like.  For the swearing in... I've seen one that was done just with the right hand in the air, without a Bible, and it was "I affirm" instead of swear, and there wasn't a "so help me God" at the end.

As for the religious question in the jury duty form... might not end up being an issue for whatever you're being summoned for, but it might.  The prosecutor and defense attorney each get a set number of jurors they can refuse.  If a devout Muslim was on trial for allegedly killing his daughter for dating a Christian boy, the defense attorney might want to use one of his refusals on a prospective juror who considered him/herself fundamentalist Christian, while the prosecutor may want to refuse any Muslims.

[hismikeness]

As for the religious question in the jury duty form... might not end up being an issue for whatever you're being summoned for, but it might.  The prosecutor and defense attorney each get a set number of jurors they can refuse.  If a devout Muslim was on trial for allegedly killing his daughter for dating a Christian boy, the defense attorney might want to use one of his refusals on a prospective juror who considered him/herself fundamentalist Christian, while the prosecutor may want to refuse any Muslims.

^^^This

I've never been called to jury duty, so I was unaware that potential jurors were required to swear in at all. I thought it was just the witnesses.  

[Whitney]

I've never been called to jury duty, so I was unaware that potential jurors were required to swear in at all. I thought it was just the witnesses.  

I think they swear in potential jury members before questioning them during the selection process.  After i posted this I remembered I could easily message two friends who have lived in Texas for a while; if they don't know then I can either ask an even larger group of Texans on facebook or call the jury info number (prefer getting the info from people like me because sometimes the city staff is not exactly accurate).

[Stevil]

I'd be scared of being a jurer on a horrific case, one of child rape or where you see graphic photos of a dismembered victim. Some jurers must go home with nightmares sometimes.

[Whitney]

I'd be scared of being a jurer on a horrific case, one of child rape or where you see graphic photos of a dismembered victim. Some jurers must go home with nightmares sometimes.

I wouldn't be bothered by the photos, I've probably seen it at some point somewhere else  What I would be bothered by is if I had to decide if someone went to jail for a very long time; I think the level of certainty I'd require would be quite high (higher than normal) before I could vote yes to a conviction.

[OldGit]

Well, Whitney, I hope you have a better experience than my wife did last month.  She was called - for the first time - spent two entire days waiting around and then was not chosen.  She had really been looking forward to seeing what goes on.

[Ulver]

As for the religious question in the jury duty form... might not end up being an issue for whatever you're being summoned for, but it might.  The prosecutor and defense attorney each get a set number of jurors they can refuse.  If a devout Muslim was on trial for allegedly killing his daughter for dating a Christian boy, the defense attorney might want to use one of his refusals on a prospective juror who considered him/herself fundamentalist Christian, while the prosecutor may want to refuse any Muslims.

^^^This

I've never been called to jury duty, so I was unaware that potential jurors were required to swear in at all. I thought it was just the witnesses.  

[Whitney]

Well, Whitney, I hope you have a better experience than my wife did last month.  She was called - for the first time - spent two entire days waiting around and then was not chosen.  She had really been looking forward to seeing what goes on.

My ideal experience is the opposite; I show up in the morning and am told I'm not wanted by early afternoon.

[AnimatedDirt]

I'll give you my experience, but it's based on what happened to me here in Los Angeles and not a Texas court.  They may differ.

For jury duty I reported to the court/jury duty section at 7:30am.  We were all sat in a large room with comfortable chairs and waited until about 8:15am when the instructions began on filling out some papers.  Most of the instruction was on how much time our empolyers paid for jury duty.  One day, two, three...unlimited or no pay.  I fall into the unlimited pay for jury duty.  All these were separated and I'm sure jurors were selected from unlimited to no pay...at least I hope that's why they do it.  We got more instructions, our juror "name" card to clip to our shirts/blouse and told that only in the jury pool room (the room we were in now) would we be referred to by our names.  If sent out to a courtroom, we would be referred to only by our juror number.  Then they went through the people that thought they had financial difficulty, and excuses to get out of jury duty or those that wanted to postpone.  Apparently the jury pools don't get called to courtrooms until about 10am.  So we sat for 45 mins to an hour before the first pools started being called to go to a certain courtroom.

Upon being called to a courtroom, you and another 30-40 jurors go with you and you sit and wait for the court clerk to come out.  She/he will take roll call (by juror number) to make sure everyone called is there and then go back in to report to the judge that all are present.  It may take some time to be called in for jury selection.  It did for us since there were at least 4 cases going on at the same time in the same courtroom.  I now know why the legal system (at least in L.A. is so slow...too many damn court cases)  There are at least two (I think three) courthouses in downtown L.A. and both are full!  The courthouse I was in had 18+ (can't remember exactly) floors and on each floor at least 10 courtrooms (at least from the layout of the floor I was on, not to mention the D.A.'s offices and whatever else there is.)

Once called into the courtroom for jury selection, we all sat in the audience section.  The judge would give some instructions and then random numbers were called.  20 at first.  The jury box was filled, plus the alt juror positions and 6 extra on a third row in front.  The judge would then give more instructions and the each juror would have to give some information.

1.  Where you live. (city)
2.  Occupation
3.  Married or Single
4.  If married, spouses occupation
5.  If you have adult child(ren), what is their occupation(s) or course of study
6.  Prior jury duty?  If so, was a decision made on the case?  Unless you've served on a jury, the answer is "no prior jury service".

Once all this is finished for each of the 20 jurors, then the judge starts to ask questions of hardship, financial troubles in serving jury duty..."Do you feel you would have a certain bias on a case?  Do you know any cops, attorneys, judges, city or state officials...  Lots of questions to weed out potential bias immediately.  He will ask if you've had an exceptionally good experience with law enforcement or an exceptionally bad experience with law enforcement...and ask you to explain.  (it depends on the case involved...I was on a criminal case)  He will ask these and ask for the jurors to raise their hands and one by one each to explain.  He will continue to ask more indepth questions as each juror's answer deems it necessary to gain more information.  He will present hypothetical situations to further understand each juror's position.

Once the questioning (which is very basic and not too involved) is done with the judge, he will ask each attorney, the defense and prosecutor to aske their questions of the jury.  They will probe for bias through basic and general questions and ask lots of "how did that make you feel", "explain your anger..."  If they find a juror they may not want, they will press that juror a bit to make points they want ALL the jurors to know without risking losing a juror they want.

After each attorney has asked their questions and I think it was about 10 minutes each that they were limited to, the judge will call a sidebar and discuss the findings of each.  Once they finish, the judge may release one or some jurors for their hardships or his perception of their inability to be unbiased that he found.  Most people are answering with rediculous answers to simply be released.  Being released doesn't end your jury duty.  You still have to go back to the jury pool in the big room and wait out the day and possibly be called again into another selection pool.  So then each attorney gets a turn to dismiss a juror.  I couldn't figure out how many turns they get as sometimes it was three and other times four or five rounds of dismissing jurors.  As seats are emptied, new jurors are randomly filled from the pool sitting in the audience....and the whole process starts AGAIN for the new jurors...answer the 6 initial questions, then the judges instructions/questions, then the attorney's make their questions again.  They cannot ask questions again of the jurors that were left, but if a juror raises his or her hand to answer again or clairify or change their answer, they can.  It's a long process.

We went through two juror pools and probably went through about 80 jurors in total to arrive at the 14.  12 jurors and 2 alternates.

My experience was positive.  I loved it.  It was totally different and educational for me in better understanding that part of our law system...at least here in L.A.

In the end, I was selected as a juror.  The most difficult thing is sitting and listening without being able to ask questions to clarify the idiocy of the attorney(s).  It took almost 3 days of jury questioning to come up with a jury both the defense and prosecuting attorneys were satisfied with.

The whole process is really interesting and my experience was positive.  I loved it.  I can't wait for next year!