Things I learned at jury duty yesterday
Apr. 17th, 2014 01:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiI had my first jury duty experience in MA, after having been called twice in GA. Those first two experiences ended without my being impaneled at all (one, in fact, ended with a bomb threat). But yesterday's was a bit more interesting.
Things I learned from the video they showed us:
1. Massachusetts pioneered the one day/one juror system (instead of the ludicrous thirty-day system).
2. MA was one of the first to allow black people to sit on juries.
3. And one of the last to allow women.
That sounds educational, but seeing as it was a twenty-minute video, I'm not sure there was a lot of real meat there.
Other things I learned:
5. I could have gotten switched to a courthouse that was closer than the one in Lowell, had I known.
6. Being impaneled is interesting, and not quite like it usually is on TV. At least in this case (a civic one), the only people who were around when I was being questioned were the judge and the attorneys; the case participants, other jurors, etc, were too far away to hear anything.
7. Now that I've served (even being dismissed is considered serving; showing up the key thing here), I've got a three-year respite from being called again.
Things I learned from the video they showed us:
1. Massachusetts pioneered the one day/one juror system (instead of the ludicrous thirty-day system).
2. MA was one of the first to allow black people to sit on juries.
3. And one of the last to allow women.
That sounds educational, but seeing as it was a twenty-minute video, I'm not sure there was a lot of real meat there.
Other things I learned:
5. I could have gotten switched to a courthouse that was closer than the one in Lowell, had I known.
6. Being impaneled is interesting, and not quite like it usually is on TV. At least in this case (a civic one), the only people who were around when I was being questioned were the judge and the attorneys; the case participants, other jurors, etc, were too far away to hear anything.
7. Now that I've served (even being dismissed is considered serving; showing up the key thing here), I've got a three-year respite from being called again.
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(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-18 08:10 pm (UTC)NY has a ten year fallow period! I think our video has some of the Law and Order guys on it.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-04-19 09:36 am (UTC)