Liar, Liar Pants on Fire!

[rlditmars]

I've skipped out on jury duty twice (I'm pretty sure they don't come after you, they're just trying to scare you. Seriously, two times!), but I would never have the royals to skip out on a subpoena.......So now I have to get up at 6 in the morning, on the day I don't work until noon, to go tell the judge what he already knows, that the punk's lying. Nice. .

So if I'm hearing you correctly, you want to reap the benefits of living in a safe society where legislators do their part and pass laws, and the police do their part to enforce the laws, but you don't want to be bothered with your part of fulfilling your civic duty and sitting on a jury or testifying as a witness. Does that sound about right? How about the next time some punk A kid pulls a gun on you at the jewelry store, a police officer just skips out on helping you? Maybe even ywice.

[BrandiR]

So if I'm hearing you correctly, you want to reap the benefits of living in a safe society where legislators do their part and pass laws, and the police do their part to enforce the laws, but you don't want to be bothered with your part of fulfilling your civic duty and sitting on a jury or testifying as a witness. Does that sound about right? How about the next time some punk A kid pulls a gun on you at the jewelry store, a police officer just skips out on helping you? Maybe even ywice.

Like I said, it was a long time ago that I skipped on jury duty.

As for testifying, I actually don't have a problem with that specifically. I had no problem going into work on a day off to meet with the detective who was handling the case. I was perfectly OK with completing a statement on my own time and delivering it to the police department, also on my own time.

I'm a little peeved that several months later I get a phone call at 4 in the afternoon telling me I'm scheduled to testify the next morning. I'm a little annoyed that they mailed the subpoena to an apartment I haven't lived at for over a year. If you want or need someone to appear in a civil case, you have to have them served and make sure they get it, and you have to pay for it if a court officer delivers it. Mailing it and hoping they get it isn't good enouch.

I'm just griping. I'm up and getting ready to go to what I was asked to do. If not doing it with a big smile makes me a bad American, then I suppose that's what I am.

[rlditmars]

I don't care if you smile or not. Go ahead and growl if you want. That's what makes you an American. You have the freedom to do so. And I sympathize with you on having a legitimate gripe as to how you have been notified to appear. I just think if we don't do what is expected of us with regard to the process, then the process suffers.

I've served jury duty twice now in two different states. One of the times I sat on a jury for almost two weeks of a trial. And just so you know I was payed $15 dollars a day for 10 days while I gave up about $3,200 in gross wages. There were 14 jurors during the trial and among us it was decided that I was to be foreman of the jury. Unfortunately, when the trial ended they only need 12 to deliberate, and they literally draw numbers from a bowl. I was drawn as an alternate and excused. The prosecutor and defense attorney took me in a back room and questioned me about how I thought it went. I told them it would end in a hung jury, and told him which juror it would be as the holdout. I told the prosecutor that he made the mistake with his opening statement and if it went to a retrial, he shouldn't make that mistake again. I was spot on with the jury hanging and the juror. Immedietely after declaring the mistrial, the defendant pleaded out instead of waiting for a retrial, as both attorneys knew the prosecution wouldn't loose the next go around. This is not to toot my horn but just so you can see how vested I was in it and that even after the fact my opinion made a difference.

I recommend it to anyone who is called. It really is an experience worth having. It gives you a little more insight as to how the system works or doesn't, and why. That doesn't mean to say you won't end up not getting on a trial or end up on a bummer of a case, but thats the way it goes. You won't be well compensated monitarily, I can promise you that, but it's still our civic duty and gives you the chance to give back to your community.

[BrandiR]

So if I'm hearing you correctly, you want to reap the benefits of living in a safe society where legislators do their part and pass laws, and the police do their part to enforce the laws, but you don't want to be bothered with your part of fulfilling your civic duty and sitting on a jury or testifying as a witness. Does that sound about right? How about the next time some punk A kid pulls a gun on you at the jewelry store, a police officer just skips out on helping you? Maybe even ywice.

I haven't had time to reply thoroughly since this was originally posted, but I do now!

It isn't a police officer's "civic duty" to protect me, it is his/her chosen career. It's their job, and most of them do it because they WANT to serve and protect, not because they are being forced by laws.

Since you brought it up, I will tell you- the jewelry store I work at actually was robbed about a year and a half ago. No one pulled a gun on me though. Instead three guys went to by boss' home and held his wife, two daughters, and six year old grandson at gunpoint for several hours until my boss came home from work. When he arrived to find his family ziptied and with guns pointed at their heads, he was forced into his own vehicle to drive two of these men back to the store where he was forced to take them in and clean out our safes for them. He didn't trigger an alarm or make a move for one of his guns because they had his family at home and made it very clear that if he screwed up, he wouldn't have a family to go home to. They got away with hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of inventory (very close to a million dollars). None of it was insured for this type of robbery. If they had done it while we were opened, or broken in at night when no one was there, it would have been covered.

So- my employer and his sister have owned this store for 30 years and have built it up to something spectacular. They are 60 and 67, they were going to retire in the next couple of years. You know what these pieces crap said to this man as they were stealing his life's work and threatening to wipe out his entire family? "Don't worry about it, you have plenty of money and you can always make more."

Why am I telling you this? Because I got the impression from your post that you think if someone skips out on their "civic duty" then they don't have any right to be angry at criminals. I disagree.

Since I'm here, I'll update you on my unexpected morning in court - I was there waiting in the hallway for two hours. The prosecutor finally came out to tell me that the defense had requested and been granted an continuance, so I could go home. He said he isn't sure when I'll have to come back, but he will be sure to send the paperwork to the correct address this time