Jury duty - was tougher than I expected.

[lukesdad]

You need to be special.

 

[biggs682]

Do you get paid for doing jury service (per day?)? What about travel expenses?
Are you obliged to attend if you are called up?

you use to get expense only it might have changed since i last did it , and its up to your employee if they pay you or not ?

 

[DCLane]

Lucky you. I had to do jury service once at Southwark Crown Court, I hated it and I hope I never get called again.

I once was a witness in Southwark Crown Court - April 2001 !

 

[Globalti]

All in all it was quite an unsatisfactory experience. I'm glad to have done it but I remain unconvinced that the jury system is appropriate to all cases and I was dismayed at the poor quality of the Police questioning and evidence and the readiness with which the eight members of the jury had come to their conclusions when the case smelled to me like an easy scalp for the Police and the CPS. The matter was actually so relatively trivial that I'm surprised it even came to Court and can't imagine how much public money has been wasted.

 

[slowwww]

A mate of mine did jury service a couple of years ago, and the defendant was accused of 2 counts of child sex.
The Crown Prosecution Service lawyer looked as if he was fresh out of law school, and it seemed as if he'd only picked up the papers for this case 10 minutes before entering the court.

On the other hand the defendant's barrister was superb, and tore the CPS lawyer and most of the witnesses to shreds.

My mate's view was that the defendant, who was a businessman with a couple successful of companies, was 'dodgy' despite the fact that the CPS lawyer had not managed to land any meaningful 'blows' on him. He stated this in the jury room, but there were several sticklers who said that while they were uncertain about his character, on the basis of what they'd seen in court there was no basis for conviction.

The arguments raged for 2 days, and the judge finally agreed to accept a 10-2 majority verdict of Guilty

After this was read out in court, a list of 19 previous convictions of the same sort of offence by the defendant was read out.

Dave was incensed as they'd come perilously close to acquitting a serial sex pest due to the ineptitude of the CPS lawyer.

While I accept in most cases that 'innocent until proven guilty' is definitely correct, and that there are some instances where previous of criminals who have genuinely reformed, in the case of repeating offenders using the same MO, surely the jury having no inkling as to previous 'form' leaves the jury system open to abuse?

 

[EltonFrog]

Now imagine that story the other way around, where all the CPS lawyer had to do was read out a list of previous.

Aye, think about the amount of time and tax payers money that would be saved.

 

[fossyant]

Been called once. Very boring two weeks. Got two cases, one was a petty theft with little evidence so not guilty and took less than a day. One meaty case about a beating but the accused didnt like the look of us as the jury so we were kicked off. Thats it in two weeks.

 

[Pale Rider]

, in the case of repeating offenders using the same MO, surely the jury having no inkling as to previous 'form' leaves the jury system open to abuse?

Evidence of bad character - including previous convictions - can now be put before the jury.

It's done on a case-by-case basis, so the prosecution has to apply each time to do it.

Equally, the defence can apply to introduce the bad character of a prosecution witness.

The bad character has to be relevant, thus a previous burglary conviction for someone accused of assault would not go in, but a record for violence might well do.

 

[Milo]

Incidentally did the initial letter telling you that you had to do it come recorded post?

 

[Globalti]

No, regular mail. Why?

 

[Milo]

It's for a project.

 

[ArDee]

I was called to do jury duty, but it was in the middle of my final exams when I was doing my undergrad degree, the university wrote a letter asking I be excused, I’ve not been called again.

But, somebody I work with has just been called for their forth stint ; However, she likes it - even goes to court to watch cases during her holidays. Perhaps they know who to call (and it isn't ghost busters)