What to Expect if Called as a Juror
As citizens, we all have an obligation to serve as jurors when summoned. Your summons to appear as a juror may come from a state court or from a federal court. Jurors are chosen by different means in different jurisdictions. Some jurisdictions draw from records of the Department of Motor Vehicles, property owner records, and voting records. Other jurisdictions may draw from only one or two of these things.
Lawyers and judges have debated the merits of how jurors should be chosen for many years. Most judges probably think that jurors should be drawn from voting lists and also from property ownership roles because that tends to produce a group of potential jurors that are more involved in the community. People that are simply listed with the Department of Motor Vehicles as being licensed drivers but who are not voters or property owners may be less involved in their community. The merits of the respective positions on that issue lay in the eyes of the beholder.
In any event, if you are called as a juror, you must respond unless you are subject to one of the exemptions that applies in your jurisdiction. Over the last several years, the number of exemptions that have applied has been narrowed in most states. It used to be that the exemptions were so broad that the court frequently was left with the only eligible jurors being housewives. That is not in any way to diminish the ability of housewives to decide the merits of litigation, but the goal of a jury trial is to provide a trial by one’s peers. That is not accomplished if the jury is limited to a narrow segment of the community.
When you are called as a juror, you will have the opportunity to state any particular problems you may have with serving. In most instances, however, unless the reason you cannot serve is extremely compelling and virtually of an emergency nature, then your excuse for not serving will likely be rejected by the court.
Your initial selection for service in a courtroom is a matter of a random draw. A certain number of jurors will be sent to a particular courtroom assigned to a judge who has been assigned a particular case. Once you are sent to that courtroom, you may be asked certain preliminary questions that are designed to determine whether there is something that would automatically disqualify you from jury service. Then the lawyers (or, in some cases, the judge) will have the opportunity to conduct what is called voir dire, a questioning process to determine whether you have any particular bias or interest in the outcome of the case. If you do, you may be dismissed from service for that reason.
If a case is going to last for several days, alternate jurors may be chosen. Typically, those alternate jurors will not be identified to the jury members themselves, since the knowledge that you were an alternate may affect the level of attention that you would apply to the case. Once all of the evidence is concluded and the closing arguments have been completed, the alternate
jurors may be excused.
One thing that frequently comes up during the course of jury service is whether jurors are allowed to take notes or to ask questions during the proceeding. That is a matter of discretion of the individual judge and can vary dramatically from state to state and from courtroom to courtroom. Some judges allow jurors to take notes; others do not. Some judges allow jurors to ask questions, while others do not.
Some judges allow jurors to take notes; others do not.
The logic behind the jury system is this: since the parties themselves are not able to resolve the particular dispute that has been brought to the courtroom, the best way to resolve the dispute is to have a group of unbiased citizens hear the evidence (in an objective fashion) and then decide that case fairly, based solely upon the evidence presented to them in the courtroom. Trial lawyers will tell you that the jury system is the great equalizer. The poorest citizen in this country can sue the mightiest corporation, and when those two parties come before a jury, they are equal. The jury is to treat each party with the same respect and attention.
The proponents of tort reform maintain that the jury system is a system that has gone awry. They maintain that jurors frequently award outlandish sums for ridiculous cases. Although it is not unheard of that juries do sometimes runaway, that is very much the exception. Even if the jury does do something that is contrary to the evidence and the law as given to them, the trial judge always has the authority to correct that by reversing the jury verdict in a criminal case if the defendant was wrongfully convicted or in a civil case by reducing the amount of the verdict if it is too high.
