I have beeen called three times in 12 years and each time i have because of health grounds ended up not having to attend.

I do feel strongly that it is wrong they can summons people to do jury duty and they should give the UK public the opportunity to tick a box saying i do not wish to be selected for Jury duty.

This is because a friend was summoned and tried a serious case of GBH, the guys friends found out where my mate lived and a few of the other jurors and after finding the accused guilty had damage done to their cars and windows. obviously those people were caught and put away but is it worth the hassle.

One good thing is i am now excused from jury duty on health grounds permentaly.

Yes I think it is worth the hassle. If too many people opted out there wouldn't be a fair balance of people. Presumably intimidation isn't too common, although as you say did happen to your friend but I think if people were able to opt out it might become more common.

Sue's right. Given the choice, I think most people would opt out, as they wouldn't want to give up the time. This would leave a very unrepresentative pool of potential jurors, and would mean that people would lose the right to be tried 'by a jury of their peers'.

Yes, I've done jury duty. I probably could have arranged it to opt out but I always thought it would be interesting to try. Besides, the job I was in was pretty dull so opting out for a week wasn't much of an issue - especially since I was getting my normal pay in the meantime!

It was a one week trial civil case. Pretty interesting trial actually. Libel case in which we ended up finding for $250,000 for the plaintiff. Something around that number. We deliberating for a couple days deciding if that number was just and we all eventually came together and figured that was about right. I found the whole process very interesting and would do it again if they had me do it.

I don't know if it's the same as in the US, but when you have to report, BRING A BOOK. It's very likely you might wait all day before getting appointed to a trial and you don't want to be waiting all day around sitting around and twiddling your thumbs. Also, not a bad place to meet other people if you know what I mean.

In my humble opinion, I think having a jury made up of twelve "peers" is no longer appropriate in this day and age. It's time we scrapped this system in favour of employing professional jurors. In theory, the system of having 12 randomly selected people who do not know the accused and can make a fair and impartial decision sounds wonderful, but is that really what we get? I don't think so.

What we get is a jury made up of those people whom the lawyers haven't found a reason to reject, people for whom the whole experience is a way of brightening up their lives (because they are unemployed or retired and haven't got anything better to do), people who don't want to be there but weren't smart enough to think up a good reason to be excused, people who possibly resent the compulsion to be there (which may negatively affect the decisions they make), and opinionated people who will relish the opportunity to have their day in court (you know the type, they love to ram their opinions down your throat).

Are those the people you would want to be judging you if you were the accused? We demand experts in every other aspect of our lives. We demand that the people who educate us, who perform surgery on us, who build our houses, etc, be suitably qualified. And yet we let a bunch of amateurs on a jury make decisions that will affect the rest of our lives, or even cut our life short?

Let's face it - a lot of people who end up on juries don't have the intelligence or ability to make the best decisions. And lawyers try to select the jury that will win them the case, not the jury that will make the correct decision.

People are emotional beings. I have no doubt whatsoever that the outcome of most jury trials hinge on simple emotions - the impression that the accused makes on the jurors, as well as the impression that the lawyers make. Can the average juror look beyond judging a book by its cover?

Sometimes the evidence presented in cases is highly technical and above the comprehension of a person of average intelligence. A friend of mine, a government accountant and a very smart guy, served on a jury in a fraud/embezzlement case. He told me that the jurors had a really hard time understanding the computer technology which was involved in the crime. In a similar vein, I attended a Forensic DNA course at the university in which we analysed the evidence in a number of court cases, including the OJ Simpson trial. It was very difficult to follow and if a person like me, who has a Science degree in Biology and a keen interest in this area, has trouble, what chance has the average person got of understanding the highly technical forensic evidence that is presented in trials? It's not as simple as it would appear on TV.

Trials with professional jurors would be shorter, and therefore would cost the taxpayers less in the long run. At present a lot of time is spent during trials simply educating the jurors in areas that are unfamiliar to them so they can have some understanding of what they are dealing with.

What we need are professional jurors - intelligent, educated people who have a university degree, who have undertaken additional legal studies to understand the correct application of the law (and can see through the lawyers' tricks), who have had a thorough background check and psychological examination, and who have the ability to set their emotions aside when making the decisions.

Hey, now, I take offense at that!

No, seriously, though, I know what you are getting at. However, the trial I was on dealt with Vietnamese issues. Only one person was excused because he was of that ethnicity. Other than that, it all stood. No unemployed people, everyone was relatively well educated (high school and beyond), no one overly opinionated, everyone was relatively intelligent, etc. Then again, a couple other fellow jurors who had been through the process a few times remarked that it was a rare jury in that sense so who knows. Only time I ever served and I found the process very interesting.

It really was a pretty cut and dried case. No real technicalities, no scientific evidence, obvious guilt on the part of the defendant (a real scumbag too), just a question of how much money was worthy of being dealt and that was the heart of the deliberation, which was what took about a day and a half or so.

However, I do have to say that I agree with the concept of a professional jury. I know I was lucky with the jury that I was on. Not all are like that, apparently. Plus, I have to say, it was really hard without any peripheral perspective to come up with a damage amount that was fair. A professional jury who dealt with that kind of thing day in and day out, well, it would be a lot easier for them to know what was fair and what wasn't.

My only concern with a professional jury would be influence from the DA to skew a case in their favor. Would it be easier to taint a member in that way? I don't know.

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Hey, now, I take offense at that!

No, seriously, though, I know what you are getting at.

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Schoonie, I know you were only teasing, but I do want to say that my comments were only general ones and not meant to imply that any of you who have served on juries were unsuitable for jury duty. Please accept my apologies as no offence was intended. My concern is that, even though some people are suitable for jury duty, many are not.

I've never served on a jury myself and in one way, I wouldn't mind doing so, just to have had the experience. But would I be a good juror? I would try to be, but I have my prejudices, just like everybody else. And I do have a tendency to make snap judgements about people within minutes of meeting them, as to whether they are trustworthy or not, and I am rarely wrong. When I read about cases in the papers, I'll make pronouncements to Maynooth as to whether I think the accused is guilty or not, and I'm right more often than wrong. Maynooth always says he wouldn't want me on his jury!

This practice of rejecting jurors does not happen in the UK (or at least England). Fifteen jurors are selected at random from the list, and of those, 12 become the jury. I'm not exactly sure what happens to the other 3, but the lawyers cannot select or reject on the grounds of ethnicity, occupation, appearance etc.

Professional jurors? Why not just a panel of judges? Take that further, why not just one judge, since their training should lead them all to form the same opinons. The concept may sound appealing in a functioning democracy, but what happens if the state starts to assume more powers? Do you then want to be judged by employees of the state?

Actually we have a dual system here in Jersey, we have some trials which will have twelve lay people which are random, and not selected or rejected by lawyers. We also have twelve official Jurats who are normally retired from professional life and well respected in the community, they come from various previous occupations and can be Jurats until they are 72. Some trials are before these Jurats rather than a lay jury, this could be particularly when it is a very sensitive trial with this being such a small island it might not be possible to get an impartial jury, the accused could opt for this. I am thinking of one case many years ago where I knew some of the 'inside' information, a young man was accused of sexually assaulting a young child and the case had received publicity before he was arrested. The Jurats just deal with facts, the judge will deal with the legal side of trials. The Jurats wear funny hats.

We, like many countries now, do not have the death sentence so that does make it easier.

Also I am certain that the juries do not have to decide on the amount of damages in civil cases either.

Definitely sounds like it is different over there than in the US. When I did jury duty that one time, we had to decide on the actual monetary amount. As you can imagine, not easy! Especially considering there needed to be a consensus among 12 people.

I'm glad it was only a civil trial. I don't want to distract the thread but considering what I have seen from the police, I would find it hard to find any of them believable on the stand. More I think about it, the more I would request to have myself excused if it was a criminal trial. I would find any internal biases I had going in multiple directions in that kind of situation.

Well, I didn't think my simple question would generate such a discussion. According to the info i've already been sent the maximum age that you can be called is 70 years old at the start of your service and once you have been called you are then exempt for ten years. There is nothing about a dress code but i still have to be sent a full information pack. If a suit and tie is called for, that's me out.

The advice actually says that you should wear something comfortable because you will be spending a lot of time sitting.

That'll do me.I have loads of 'comfortable' clothes.

As I said, in Jersey it is jacket and tie. I have known the judge getting uppity at disrespect for the Court when people have turned up scruffy, unless they are the defendant.

When I worked for the CAB we had a young Portuguese woman who sometimes went with defendants as an interpretor and I can remember her getting told off for turning up in a sundress, she was told in future to dress suitably - and that was only the Magistrate's Court. But even here they don't insist on suits for men though.

Trousers and a shirt I can do, a tie though would strangle me. I didn't even wear one when I got married.

My experience left me with such conflicting feelings and opinions I can agree and disagree with every comment made here. Bottom line for me is that I DON'T WANT TO EVER BE ON TRIAL! Even though extraordinary precautions were taken and expenses made to assure the accused a fair trial, I'm not at all sure it was completely fair. Yet I am sure the community is safer with him behind bars. And still I feel pity and compassion for him.

How do you KNOW who's lying???

The trial I sat on was very much like what is shown on TV with two exceptions:

1. It was in very slow motion. TV has to keep it short and dramatic without wading through all the detailed explanations.

2. Both lawyers were disappointingly dull and unglamorous. The defender wore hiking boots and seemed seriously deficient mentally as well as physically clumsy, tripping over things and so on. Well, not actually mentally deficient but not sharp like you expect a lawyer to be, and with the eloquence of a mediocre 8th-grader. The prosecutor was sharp enough, but slaughtered the king's English and seemed to have forgotten her blow dryer. (Both were staying in the only motel in town.)

There was plenty of "Objection, your Honor," "Objection sustained," "Objection denied." Lots of physical evidence in many forms, many witnesses from far and wide.

None of the jurors was unemployed, unless you count the retired teacher who drove 100 miles each way to do her civic duty. I'm also a teacher. Only one juror was what could be considered on the low end of the socio-economic scale, but she has plenty of common sense. Later the most personable one, the receptionist at the dentist's office, confessed to me she lied to get on the jury because she wanted to help put that guy away. That unsettled me. Otherwise, if I were to be on trial, I would want to be heard by such a jury.

We are now such a diverse population it's true we can't really be judged by our "peers," and it's true that few jurors really understand all that stuff--although in our case the judge was careful to explain the pertinent legalities. We weren't stupid, so I think we did OK.

If men weren't corrupt, of course a professional jury would be superior to an amateur, but since we are subject to corruption, that idea scares me. Another plus of a jury drafted from the populace is that it involves us in government and so educates us and gives us a new perspective. If we were excluded from that we would be the poorer.

My experience could be likened to childbirth--initially, "Get me out of here! I'm never going through this again." But time dulls the pain and sharpens the rewards. I'd do it again.

queproblema, I think that is a good point - it's good for society as a whole to have citizens involved in decision-making processes. Whether it is good for the defendant in a particular case is a different question.

The irony is hilarious right now.

After talking all this stuff about jury duty, what did I get in the mail today? A jury summons!

Oh well, hopefully I don't get called up for a long trial. Luckily, the courthouse isn't too far away from where I live.

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Later the most personable one, the receptionist at the dentist's office, confessed to me she lied to get on the jury because she wanted to help put that guy away. That unsettled me.

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My point exactly! This person is dishonest, biased and stupid - not qualities that you want in a juror. Dishonest because she lied to get on the jury, biased because she obviously made up her mind prior to the trial, and stupid for telling someone else what she had done. I'm sure this is not an isolated instance (of people lying to get on a jury).

I hope you reported her to the judge - she should have been disqualified. I wonder if lying to get on a jury is considered a crime? If so, and you didn't report her, would you be considered an accomplice after the fact?

I would think it is certainly a crime to lie to get on the jury.

I sat through a trial once at a magistrates court, it was a assault case occasioning bodily harm, The solicitor defending the accused made a mockery of the system to be honest as it appeared the guy assaulted was living with the accused's wife who had left him and was in the process of divorcing the accused. The person assaulated was hit over the head with a tin of paint, the defence solicitor posed the question was the paint emulsion or gloss when cross examining the pwerson assaulted. The magistrates asked him why he had asked the question and the soilicitors reply was gloss paint was heavier then emulsion. I thought what a mockery of the legal system this solicitor had made. It appeared he was the criminals friend and had got many off that were guilty. If i had not been in the public gallery i would never have belived what i had heard.

How bizarre.