I got my High Court summons last week telling me I'd been selected for jury service (oh deep joy). It doesn't start until June 1st. Has anyone else done jury service and what was your experience?

Well I have been sent for three times in the last 30 years and they refused me every time. I cannot think why.

Jury duty does not exist in the Netherlands, so I have no experience with it. Wouldn't mind trying it once though, just to see what it is like (even though I have been told it's usually rather boring).

Ren, I love your signature!

I wish that I would be sent for, I would enjoy it.

How long are you on standby for? Do they have more than one courtroom in Oxford? I am assuming it is there they have called you.

I do know they normally call more than they need so once they have chosen enough the rest are sent home. Well they do here.

Yes, I served on a jury in January of 2008. That was in the US, of course, and is likely quite different from what your experience will be.

All of us who had received a notice gathered in the courtroom and were publicly questioned--rather intimidating on your first time. You stand before strangers (and possibly neighbors) to give your name, marital status, occupation, and tell your interests, achievements, hobbies. The lawyers ask any questions they feel like. From time to time the lawyers huddle with the judge and then the judge (or is it the recorder?) calls out the names of people who are dismissed. Eventually they get it down to the people they want.

I could go on here but am under constraint of time.

I have a feeling that is completely different to the UK.

This tells you a lot about it all...

http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/infoabout/jury_service/index.htm

Sue, Oxford has High, county and coroners courts. I think there are six coutrooms. From what my mum told me when she was called many years ago there is a good chance I won't have to sit. It all depends on the cases that have to be heard. I'm on call for two weeks.

Take a laptop and do some quizzes.

Had a boyfriend called once. He spent most of a day down there and was sent home without anyone ever asking him any questions. I don't know if this was because they had enough without him, or because they looked at his hair down to his butt and neither side wanted him...

I was summonsed to Southwark Crown Court a couple of years ago. They have about ten courts in the building, so they call a large number of people. On the first day they called some for juries, and half way through the afternoon told the rest of us to go home. The second day, they selected a few more, and then by lunchtime I was told I could go home, and was not needed any more.

I dressed fairly smartly the first day, having been brought up with concepts like respect for the courts; by day 2 I was in jeans with almost everyone else.

Take a good book - there's a lot of sitting around waiting. Try not to take too many personal possessions with you - at Southwark there didn't appear to be anywhere to put them, so anything you had with you, you took into court.

They should send you literature about claiming expenses etc, and it also gives website addresses where you can get more details. On the first day there, they showed us a video explaining how it all worked.

That would presumably be the link I posted above.

That's one of them, but I seem to remember there was another as well. It was a couple of years ago!

Just remembered another important thing. You say you are called for two weeks. In that two week period, a group of jurors may sit on several trials, as most are quite short. If they think a trial will last longer than the two weeks, a potential jury will be summoned, but before being sworn in they will be given a questionnaire to complete about any forthcoming commitments which may interfere. It is the court's decision whether those commitments take priority over the trial, so make any commitments sound impressive and expensive (if that's what you want).

dippo's experience sounds similar to mine in Carlisle a few years ago. We certainly didn't have the public questioning that queproblema experienced, but you will be asked if you have any connection at all with any of the people connected with any case you may be asked to try. You should be able to give that information privately, if necessary. I was at the court for almost all of the scheduled fortnight, but only in court for about two and a half days so definitely take a good book, or something. They tried to make sure that jurors for cases which would last over a weekend were taken from the pool that had started that week, so as to minimise the number of people who were kept longer than a fortnight. I don't think they get many long trials in Carlisle Crown Court, but you might have something more interesting in Oxford! On the whole I enjoyed the experience. Good luck with it.

I was called about 25 years ago in Inverness. Fortunately the case only lasted three days. The guy was up for assault, and quite honestly, I would have found the "victim" guilty of assault too, and I felt real bad finding this guy guilty and letting the other bloke off, just because he had punctured his lung. After we had listened to the case (that seem just to drag on), we then had to discuss if we though the injury was serious or not; a good ten minute argument as to weather the guy would be drunk on the 12 pints he'd had; and such like. And then when we went back into court and asked for the verdict, we had only voted on the main topic, and forgotten about other ones (Such has did he breach the terms of his bail). Our elected chairman decided to find the fellow guilty of all the subsidiary charges, with out consulting us (Thank goodness, as they were all linked to a guilty verdict anyway in my opinion).
At least we were all taken off to a nice Hotel for lunch at their expense.

Quote:

---

Well I have been sent for three times in the last 30 years and they refused me every time. I cannot think why.

---

Well, ren, that's probably because you are a teacher. A lawyer friend of mine once told me that lawyers will never select a teacher or a doctor for a jury if they can help it.

I've never been selected for jury duty, but Maynooth has been a number of times.

Best advice - take a book to read. Apparently it's a really boring process.

P.S. A tip - read "The Runaway Jury" by John Grisham if you want to know more about the jury selection process and why certain professions like teachers are rejected.

Extracts from http://www.levellers.org/jrp/orig/jrp.philinfo.htm

Philadelphia DA Candidate's Tips on Jury Selection

Jack McMahon, the Republican candidate for Philadelphia district attorney, made a training tape while working as a prosecutor 10 years ago ...

...he cautioned against picking intelligent people.

"You do not want smart people. I wish we could ask everyone's IQ. If you could know their IQ, you could pick a great jury all the time. You don't want smart people because smart people will analyze the hell out of your case. They have a higher standard. They hold you up to a higher standard. They hold the courts up to a higher standard . . . They take those words `reasonable doubt,' and they actually try to think about them.''

He continued: "You don't want social workers. . . . Teachers, you don't like. Teachers are bad, especially young teachers. . . . If you get like a white teacher teaching in a black school that's sick of these guys, maybe that may be one you accept. . . . Bad luck with teachers, bad luck with social workers. Bad luck with intelligent doctors.'' ...

.... Teachers are bad, especially young teachers. Like teachers who teach in the grade-school level. Sometimes, you get teachers. I've had good luck with teachers who teach in the public school system.... They may be so fed up with the garbage that they've had in their school, they may say, `I know this kind of kid. He's a pain in the [censored].' If you get like a white teacher teaching in a black school that's sick of these guys maybe, that may be one you accept.

I've never served on a jury. For most of my working life I was with Her Majesty's Customs and Excise and therefore exempt.

From my limited experience of courtrooms as a hanger-on and on one or two occasions as a witness, I can confirm Leau's observation that court proceedings are extremely boring. You won't see any of the wit and repartee and lightning intellectual cut-and-thrust that you see all the time in films and TV programmes.

I've heard of the American procedure that queproblema describes (I think it's called a voir-dire, isn't it?), but there's nothing like that in an English court. Indeed, I think the right of both the defence and the prosecution to challenge prospective jurors has been greatly curtailed during the last few decades.

I have just read our local information on jury duty and men are expected to wear ties and jacket, but that is presumably just here.

Apparently I only have another three and a half years in which to be called, we have to be between 25 and 65.

Don't count on it Sue - a friend of my mothers has been called 3 times since she turned 75! The third time she was almost 80. Each time she calls up and tells them her age and they apologise and say it won't happen again...

I was summoned for jury duty and spent the next two days sitting, reading and visiting with the people around me. The court never asked me anything. The upside is that it'll be at least a year before they can call me again.

The nearest court to us that would have jury duty is 250kms away so whenever they send out jury notices, and it seems to be every few years, we get off every time becuase we are too far away.

I've been called to serve three different times, but only sat on one jury when I was much younger. The other times I was sent home because I worked for the state police and defense lawyers don't usually like police personnel to sit on their jury.

I've only been called twice...once for the city and once for the county. I have yet to serve, thankfully. Here in Texas, you can serve until you're age 70.

When I was called in California my children were small and I couldn't go. The first several times I was called in Alaska the cases were dismissed.

The courthouse is 45 miles from my house; another juror lived 100 miles away. A friend of mine here once had to serve in Anchorage, 250 miles away.

I'm glad to have served as a juror, but for months afterward felt that I never could again. Our case wasn't the least bit boring; it was wrenching. It was a kidnapping/rape case, and we had to sit and listen to three young women the ages of my daughters tell us what the man had done to them.

I've just deleted three whole paragraphs as being "too much information." Suffice it to say that not being able to talk about it was as bad as listening to it. We'd go back to the jury room and sigh and stare at one another, unable to make small talk and not allowed to say what we were feeling and thinking. Then later come home and have to be mum and forgo reading the news.

Breaks were boring. I had taken Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" to read, but it was too depressing and I had to find something more uplifting.

Listening to the forensic lab technician was fascinating, and so was watching and participating in the whole legal process, wretched as it is.