Slashdot Mirror
eJuror Will Lead To New List of Jury Duty Excuses
coondoggie writes "Now you can say your jury duty request got lost in the cloud, or that the network was down, or the Internet ate it. That's because the US District Court system is close to completing a rollout of its national eJuror system that lets prospective jurors have the option of responding to their jury questionnaire or summons online. About 80 of the 94 US district courts have had the eJuror software installed and more than half of those courts are already live on the system."
My spam filter ate it!
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
Saves me the trouble of getting my Jedi robes out of the attic so I can be kicked off the jury in person.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I hate whites|blacks|latinos. Done, can I go back to work now?
If you think you're a fair person, being on a jury is not a bad thing.
Even better, being a fully informed member of a jury
http://fija.org/ --(Fully Informed Jury Association)
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
The Prosecutor and Defense both write out long documents outlining their cases, available on an audio file, which gets submitted to Jurors online and they get to view the case without any kind of prejudice (You don't know the sex/race/age of the alleged criminal or victim unless it is important to the crime at hand).
The bickering between the two will be just like any other internet forum, the judge is like a Moderator, and rather than a jury of a dozen peers or so, it can be done by any amount of volunteers from 4chan or by some Amazon Cloud support team or something.
I know I know, there's a lot of things wrong with doing it this way - but is it really any worse than the way its done already?
Top judge says internet 'could kill jury system'
The jury system may not survive if it is undermined by social networking sites, England's top judge has said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11796648
char*f="char*f=%c%s%c;main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}";main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}
First: For those of you who think avoiding jury duty is an option rather than a duty -- thanks for avoiding one of the simplest and most basic requests that our country makes of you in exchange for citizenship. You must be proud.
Second: If the request gets lost, it gets lost. It doesn't matter whether it's eaten by a computer, an angry mail processing machine, or the dog. Lost is lost. You'll get another summons.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I'm a Libertarian who believes in Jury Nullification. I also believe that as a jury member I can ask questions of witnesses beyond the questions directed by either side, and I won't hesitate to raise my hand to ask questions neither side is willing to ask to get at the truth neither side is really after.
If we're bound by the idea that if it is a "law" that it is legal, then we end up with the Senator Palpatine style "I will make it legal"
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
My Wife got a jury summons last month. The summons mentioned that she could reply only. She tried, but their reply page only supported IE 5 (yes, five).
If you're any good with reasoning and logic. Try to serve on a jury. TRY! Give them the answers they want. I've been through the jury selection process and see who they pick as your "peers". God forbid if you ever have to be trialed and all the reasonable jurors made up excuses to get out of jury duty.
The US jury is the final barrier to abuse of laws and other injustices. If you excuse your way out of serving on a jury, you have little grounds to complain about abuses of law, since you passed up an opportunity to potentially stop it, if it was present in that case.
I know I have a better understanding of science & technology (through hobbies), law (by education), logic & fallacy (by education), and value my integrity more than the vast majority of the public. I love to see the process in action (even though I decided not to be part of it professionally).
I have, though, considered it an imaginary dream job to simply serve on juries day-in and day-out. Professional Juror! Critical thinking, creative solutions-- civil and criminal cases alike.
The jury summons I received last week had the option of responding via ejuror.co.clark.nv.us. I attempted to login and was denied access. The error message indicated that neither my social security nor birthdate matched what was in the system. However when I called in and eventually got access to a live person, both of those details were correct in the system. Color me not impressed.
Even though I haven't lived there since 1986. My mother, who has nothing else better to do, calls the number on the letter, and tells (brags) that her son is working on another continent. She has repeatedly requested that my name be removed from the list, which doesn't seem to work. She was called up herself, but given that she was over 80, and has heath problems she didn't want to serve. But neither the DA or the defense wanted to excuse her. Did they think that old ladies can be manipulated?
Anyway the case was against a cop from her town being charged for using excessive force or something like that. She was finally so frustrated at not being excused, that when the judge asked her at the end, if there was anything she would like to say, she answered, "I could never find a police officer from my town guilty." I would have thought that the DA would have asked her that, but I guess he was hoping that he had a senior citizen to manipulate.
When my father was called up jury duty, he told me how the selection process went. He was a quiet person, but a very astute observer. Both the DA and the defense kicked off anyone prospective juror who had half a brain. The first question presented to him was about his education and profession. Both the DA and the defense attorney stood up, the judge laughed, and said to my father, "Go home."
Now that I am older, and could afford to spend to spend some time on a jury, I wouldn't mind doing so. But I would probably get chucked as fast as my dad did.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
It seems that if people have the option to run away from this responsibility, the people who choose to do so are the ones who we wouldn't care to have on the jury anyway. I don't know about everyone else, but if I was being convicted of a crime I didn't commit, I would rather have the people that are willing to take the time out of their lives to do so, then the ones who will vote the way of the majority in order to end the process quickly.
Never mind the outlandish costumes or personality quirks that smack of the obvious. Just simply state you are a law fanatic, and are eager to get on a case where you can make new law. You'll get rejected immediately.
If the jury has a question they hand it to the clerk, and the judge gets to decide if it gets asked. Works well in that it maintains the order of a court room (a court isn't supposed to be something where anything goes) and protects the defendant's rights and so on, but lets the jury get relevant information that they have an interest in.
I would have loved to have this in my district when I was summoned for the second time. Hopefully this system checks if a potential juror is exempt because they previously served within the last two years or whatever and doesn't even send a notice out. I was so angry when they mailed me that second summons and I had to tell them I'm exempt, something that they should already know. I'm sure they had to verify my exemption by easily looking it up, but no, they had to waste my tax dollars and money.
To all saying you should serve as a juror especially if you are logical and would make good choices - part of the juror selection process (at least what I went through) is the judge asks you some questions about what you do, your job, and some other things to make you comfortable and at ease. Then the counsel for both sides takes turns saying which jurors they don't want to server. And guess what. They selected the scientists and engineers to not be their jurors. I was still on there because I think they reached their limit of who to throw off (I'd like to think I'm one of those smart people they'd throw off since I'm a mathematician/computer scientist that studies philosophy of science on the side.) Why throw off the smart ones? My guess is they think they're less moved by emotion and listen more to reason.
I served on a jury in Wake County (NC) and my experience was the opposite. To a person all 14 of us were college educated and about half the jurors had higher than college level education. The only people who were excused were people with ties to law enforcement and people who had been on the receiving end of law enforcement in the past.
I think it may depend on the area. I've seen some trials where some smart people have served. An interesting major case with that would be the Terry Childs case. One of the jurors had a CCIE. Means not only is he extremely smart, but extremely knowledgeable in the technical aspects that will come up. However he was chosen to serve. There is no universal truth to selection in my experience.
As for stupid summons I've got a good one:
My mom is a Canadian by birth, and never bothered to immigrate to the US (well she did actually 1 year before moving back to Canada). Had her green card for decades and all was well. Periodically she'd get a jury summons. She'd mark the "I'm not a citizen," box and that was that but they didn't take her off the list. One time she gets a summons, makes the "Go away box," gets a "You have to come or we'll issue a warrant for your arrest," letter. So she goes. The case is for something minor and the judge starts off with a speech to the effect of "This case will be done before the end of the day, so I don't want to hear any lame excuses why you don't have time to serve. That said, does anyone have a legit reason they can't be here?" Mom timidly raised her hand and said "I'm Canadian." The judge was flabbergasted said "Do you have your green card? Come here!" She showed him her green card, he wrote down her name and turned to a deputy and said "Get her off the list, I don't want to hear she's been bothered again." He then apologized to my mom and she left. Never got a summons again.
If you want out of jury duty just say: "I'm a proponent of jury nullification"
...trial by jury, who, by some random coincidence, all also happened to be computer hackers.
election judges make more for 1 day work then some jurys make in 2-3 days.
jury pay should be at least $100-$200 a day + transportation expenses. And $300 + a day if you are sequestered overnight.
I've tried to fulfill my civic duty (or at least get to the part where they toss me during jury selection based on my education).... but the county where I live has bizzaro scheduling rules for jury duty
- You are "on call" for a month
- You have to call every single morning to find out if you were selected for that particular day
both occasions I've received summons have been months where I was scheduled to travel for work and couldn't sit around on my ass for an entire month waiting to randomly get called. After the first summons, I submitted a deferment with a simple explanation e.g. "I cannot serve this month but will gladly serve during any of the following months ___, ____, ...". They deferred the duty, but ignored the rescheduling request. A few months later they send me another summons during another inconvenient time and now refused to defer further despite a detailed letter and several calls. The irate lady on the phone wouldn't budge. Conversation went something like this
clerk : You are scheduled for jury duty this coming month
me : I won't be home that month, but will gladly serve during ______ months
clerk : your duty is for the NEXT month
me : I understand, but I am on travel for business that entire month, can we please defer the duty to another date and I will definitely serve
clerk : we have already granted you one deferment
me : I am physically on the OTHER SIDE of the country trying to earn a living right now, it is impractical for me to fly back and sit at home for the entire month waiting to possibly get picked by your inane process
clerk : if you don't show up next month I will have a warrant served by the sheriff for your appearance.
I finally just sent them a utility bill from one of the properties I own in another state and told them to go pound sand. They haven't bothered me since. The kicker is that I was perfectly willing to serve had they shown a little bit of flexibility in the scheduling (or just had a less retarded process).
Note to self: If accused of a crime that I didn't commit, get the jurisdiction transfered to Wake County (NC). And try the pulled pork.
Yossarian? What kind of name is Yossarian?
It's Yossarian's name, sir.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
they have us on it this year. All it saved me doing was dropping the survey in the mail or handing it in at the baliff's office. If I had needed to get out of going downtown I could have entered my reason on-line, but the notice itself came in the physical mail. As I have the past two years, I was dismissed before we even got into a court-room for the lawyers to talk to us. I donated my $6 to help at risk youth.
http://transformativeworks.org/
The idea that educated people aren't selected for a jury just isn't true. I've served, and I have a doctorate in microbiology -- and there was another professor on the jury as well. Obviously both the defense and the prosecution want to eliminate people who would be biased against their side (and take turns doing this from the initial pool), but there is no reason why the educated can't be unbiased.
Then judges and clerks and everyone else should serve for free.
Frankly paying someone 5 dollars a day (but nothing the first day) for "the highest civic duty in this country" and preventing them from working an undetermined amount of days is a spit in the face. Either the job is important, or it isn't. If it is important, let's take some money from those overpaid government weasels and pay the people, and they'll WANT to go.
We pay the military personnel too, and give them benefits, and that's also a civic duty.
"If he weren't guilty, the police wouldn't have arrested him."
Kept him off regular juries, but he did spend a year on his county's grand jury ... :-(
Is it a cross-platform solution?m Or can I use Windows (my lack thereof) as an excuse?
I served on a jury as foreman in a small town in Indiana (Nashville).
Background: 2 city cops were railroading a guy all of us perceived as innocent (the cop lied 3 times during testimony and deposition).
During selection, they started with 40 people. 20 were immediately dismissed due to questionnaire. Out of the 20, the school superintendant dismissed, family with law enforcement ties were dismissed, as were others that had conflict in the case. And I had broke my shoulder 3 weeks prior, so im in a sling. Everything was 'decent' in terms of no discrimination on schooling or intelligence. And it was painless.
However, during sequestering, I heard some of the most bile I've heard from others. I DO NOT like authority only because almost all abuse it. This case was no exception, but my fellow jurors went to the point of "I know who that cop is, and he's a dirty one." then she proceeds to tell stories about his covered dirt. I stayed... ahem... impartial, but the cop lied about his own testimony in open court.
I asked the judge in her quarters why wont he be charged with perjury. No answer...
That case alone let me know that the jury system does work. We would have acquitted within 10 minutes f cop 1's testimony.
I had a very similar experience with selective service registration (in case they ever decide to reinstate the draft) when I moved to the U.S. on a non-immigrant visa. They found me within three weeks of my arrival, but it took telling them twice that I wasn't a citizen for them to leave me alone, and even then, it may have had more to do with the fact that I passed the maximum age during that period. My question is if they can find 18-24 year olds so easily, why do they need a database? It is not like the draft is currently in effect.
Yep. I did too.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I guess I can understand someone who works by traveling all the time, who has to schedule weeks or months in advance, a jury summons can provide a major financial hardship, not only for the one called to serve, but the business that he works for. However, most people, especially the ones with typical 9 to 5 jobs, should have no trouble attending jury duty. Heck, I wish they'd call me more often. I get to sit in a courtroom for a couple hours, until they either assign me to a panel or decide they don't need me. If they don't need me, I get to spend the rest of the day at home, and I still get a full day's pay from my job (in addition to the pittance that I get paid for jury duty itself). If I were to get selected for a jury, I'd get paid my full wages for each day the trial lasts (up to 2 weeks), PLUS an extra $50 a day. I personally think it'd be an interesting experience to actually get on a jury. I wouldn't want to be on one for months at a time, but doing that for a week instead of going to my day job would be a welcome change of pace. Oh well.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Your statement might make some sense if you used THAN in place of THEN.
I don't know if my county uses eJuror or some other online system, but "got lost in the cloud, or that the network was down, or the Internet ate it" would all be perfectly valid excuses. It was horrible software. Bad UI, confusing directions, and it hung after my final "Submit" press, so I had no idea if the whole thing had been processed or not. Nephew-ware of the worst kind.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Sounds like you have reasonable grounds for an excuse from jury duty due to economic hardship. My company only pays for two weeks of jury duty per year, which gives me an out for trials expected to last longer than two weeks.
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
Even though I haven't lived there since 1986. My mother, who has nothing else better to do, calls the number on the letter, and tells (brags) that her son is working on another continent. She has repeatedly requested that my name be removed from the list, which doesn't seem to work.
I'm the eJuror administrator at a Federal courthouse.
Jury wheels are based on voter registration rolls (or, in very few states, city/town residency records) for the state the court is in. If you're still getting service requests, it's because you haven't updated your voter registration to reflect your new address (or, in the aforementioned very few states, your local clerk is still submitting your name as a resident).
The jury wheel is reloaded every 1-4 years, depending on the district. If your name is still being submitted by the state or town, you're going to stay in the list. The people at the Federal courthouse don't have the authority to remove you from the list, and calling them will have no effect.