Jury Service Summons

[W. Gray]

I have served only on a jury in Colorado and nowhere else. I do not know if other places operate under the same premise. I have been on trials at the municipal and state level.

We are called for jury pool duty rather than duty for any one particular trial—apparently because there are so many trials pending and these trials need scheduling on a flexible basis. One court building was expanding to eighteen courtrooms to handle the flow. The duty is for three to five days unless one is selected for a trial that lasts longer.

Perhaps two-hundred prospective jurors congregate in a main room and wait. Many, many people do not show up for jury duty and I believe the entire court process is so overwhelmed with legal matters nothing ever happens to them. I once heard court authorities would call them for duty again and after so many times as a no show would then take action.

When a jury is needed, perhaps fifty people in the main room are called to a courtroom for a specific trial and the culling process to pick twelve jurors begins. It can take quite a while for the prosecution and defense to agree on twelve peers. Sometimes it gets comical to everyone involved. Other times it borders on stupidity to the prospective jurors but is highly serious to the prosecution and defense.

The twelve (sometimes six) selected as the jury stay in the courtroom for the trial, while the others go back to the pool in the main room to again wait for selection. This goes on for the three to five day period and sometimes it can get rather boring waiting around.

If one is picked to serve on a trial, he goes back to the main room after trial decision and waits to again be selected.

Some people get tired of the entire process and just go home. I do not know that anything much happens to these folks either.

I served on three trials during one week and was considered for a few others.

In one case a black women charged a police man for profiling. He clocked her going fifteen miles over the speed limit. She charged profiling because she was driving a Porsche. She claimed he stopped her only because of the expensive vehicle she was driving. She acted as her own attorney and she lost.

In another case, a man sued another person for damages to the front end of his car. He had rear ended the other person. In my opinion, this trial should never have come about. The suing individual did not win and his lawyer seemed quite upset.

In another case, I was picked for a sexual assault trial. During the jury culling process, they brought the charged individual in and he gave me an immediate mental image of being a bad person. Too late, I had already been selected to sit in legal judgment. It was 6:30 pm when we were dismissed to go home and report at 8:00am the next morning for trial.

The next morning twelve jurors were the only people in the courtroom talking as strangers with each other and trying hard not to say anything about the trial—the only thing we all had in common up to that point. One, two, three hours went by with the bailiff coming around periodically saying, "It will be a few more minutes."

Finally, the bailiff came in and said the man had pleaded guilty so he could receive a lesser punishment.

[giester2]

Jury service in Houston

Similiar to w Gray.  You start in a big room with assigned numbers.  Then they call numbers and dismiss you or send you to the courthouse for jury selection.

We are having such a problem with people showing up that one judge in Sugarland (small town sw of houston), sent his bailiff into the streets and started pulling in everyday citizens off the streets (http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=local&id=3372245). 


Many potential jurors here have complained of being treated poorly by the officers of the court and the judges.  They are trying to change this impression so much so that the judges are now sending thank letters to prospective jurors if they show up (my dad got one).

[Bonnie M.]

I was called for Jury duty a couple of months ago.  I couldn't find anything on the "excuses" list to excuse me, even though my sister, in the Dallas area, says that their summons for jury duty does have an exemption for anyone over 70 years of age.  But, i dutifully showed up, along with 200 or 300 other people, and since my name wasn't randomly selected to serve on a trial, I, along with all others whose names hadn't been selected, were told to go home, and we wouldn't be served with a jury summons for another year.  And, they were very polite.  We have the Superior Court in Vista and the District Court in San Diego, and I went to Vista.  There are people who enjoy serving on a jury, and others who have never been called.  I would always serve, if selected.  The one jury trial I did sit on, several years ago, in Vista, was a rape/kidnap case.  The guy charged had the nickname of "Rattlesnake," if that gives you a clue as to his "character."  We actually went over and over the evidence, (I'm a secretary so I wrote everything down) and we did find him guilty.  But, what we got into was, we felt that both, the accuser and the defendant, were probably not telling the truth about a lot of things, so it was a "he said, she said" sort of thing!

[Janet Harrington]

I believe that the judges in the 13th Judicial District, which is Elk County, Butler County, and Greenwood County, send thank you letters to the jurors that serve on a jury trial.  I know for a fact that Judge Sanders does do that.

[Diane Amberg]

Al and I have each had jury duty several times over the years.  New Castle County Courts are all 12 miles away in  Wilmington at the court house.  Years ago you were called for 30 days and had to appear each day until you were called to a jury or the time was up.  Then they made it two weeks, but started cutting back on exemptions.   Now it's one day, one jury with almost no exemptions except age or mental status.  You call in the night before to find out the status of the case and get your court assignment.  If you go early enough, there is free parking in the garage beneath the court house.  Most employers give you your regular pay if you turn in your court check of $12.00 per day.  If you are a no show, the sheriff will come after you.  Late isn't tolerated without a very good excuse; you will be put right back in the next day's jury pool.  The bailiff for the jury pool room is a very witty and competent lady who is really good at keeping everyone informed as to what is going on.  You have to wait for a long time, but she explains why.  Ours were all superior court cases.  Al had capital murder cases and drug cases.  Mine were all drug cases.  All were found guilty.  My last call settled by pleading guilty at the last minute so we got to leave early.  I won't be called again for at least two years. 

[Marcia Moore]

I was selected as one of the jurors for the Scott Cheever trial, and we finished up today.  I didn't tell anyone before that I was selected to serve on the jury because I didn't want to welcome comments, since I was not allowed to talk about the trial.  Hopefully I will never have to serve on another capital murder trial, but can surely say it was quite a learning experience. 

[W. Gray]

I was heading to Eureka last week after dark on US 54 when I saw a remote Wichita television truck whizzing by going to El Dorado. I wondered what it was doing in such a desolate area.

When a second truck came by, I mentioned to the wife they must have come from Eureka.

The Eureka newspaper also had a story that the killer's mother was in criminal hot water. She apparently tried to influence some folks to lower the charge to something that would allow her son to live. She said something to the effect that she would do anything to keep him from the "chair." That type of action should not be condoned but there are many mothers who might do the same.

If you finished up, what was the verdict?

[Bonnie M.]

And the verdict.......

You did a great job of not discussing the trial, as you were directed. 

[Dee Gee]

I think the jury did arrive at the correct verdict as the evidence indicated that Cheever killed the sheriff in cold blood and deserved the death sentence and also his family deserves some of the blame for how he was raised.

[Marcia Moore]

Yes, the verdict was death.  All 12 jurors had to agree on the death penalty, otherwise the verdict would have to be life imprisonment.  One of the jurors held out from agreeing to the death penalty for around two hours.  Had it not been for the one holdout, the death penalty verdict would have been reached as soon as all of us had finished going through the new evidence that was presented in the second phase of the trial.  The evidence only took us around 20-30 minutes to go through.