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Jury duty

Started by Ms Grace, June 03, 2016, 07:05:30 PM

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FTMax

Never been called, but I have worked for lawyers during jury selection. By far my favorite kind of consulting to do.

Easiest way to get cut loose during jury selection is to express strong opinions that are contrary to the goals of whichever side is asking it at the time. Each lawyer gets a certain number of folks they can say no to, and to save those for the people that matter, most will pre-empt the process by saying if anyone is biased against X, Y, or Z they can step out. At least in the US.

I'd say go give it a shot and see how you feel around the other folks. If you feel at all uncomfortable or like it would truly suck to have to sit with those people everyday for however many days it takes for the trial to run its course, find a good question that you can have an extreme reaction to and get cut.

They usually start the process by asking if anyone has any reason why they can't serve. If it would be bad for you at work this month, you could say that. Some here don't have any sympathy for that though. You could mention that you are trans and say that you have anxiety being around strangers. That may help in a lot of ways.
T: 12/5/2014 | Top: 4/21/2015 | Hysto: 2/6/2016 | Meta: 3/21/2017

I don't come here anymore, so if you need to get in touch send an email: maxdoeswork AT protonmail.com
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Joelene9

  I've been called up 4 times. 3 City/State and 1 Federal. Served on 2 juries, both nasty cases. One of those was a first degree murder-for-hire case. There was drama at the end when the judge read out the first verdict of First Degree Murder. Evidently he didn't like the verdict so he overturned the defense table, ran to the assistant DA and socked him in the eye. He was then tackled by the Sheriff's deputies in front of the jury box at my feet and tazed. The judge ordered the excited gallery be cleared. One of the deputies asked the judge "The defendant too?" The judge replied "No! I am not done with him yet!" Then he read the 2 remaining verdicts. I would still serve if they call me up again.

Joelene
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Ellement_of_Freedom

Quote from: Joelene9 on June 05, 2016, 12:13:35 AM
  I've been called up 4 times. 3 City/State and 1 Federal. Served on 2 juries, both nasty cases. One of those was a first degree murder-for-hire case. There was drama at the end when the judge read out the first verdict of First Degree Murder. Evidently he didn't like the verdict so he overturned the defense table, ran to the assistant DA and socked him in the eye. He was then tackled by the Sheriff's deputies in front of the jury box at my feet and tazed. The judge ordered the excited gallery be cleared. One of the deputies asked the judge "The defendant too?" The judge replied "No! I am not done with him yet!" Then he read the 2 remaining verdicts. I would still serve if they call me up again.

Joelene
Um. I'm guessing that person is no longer a judge. Lol


FFS: Dr Noorman van der Dussen, August 2018 (Belgium)
SRS: Dr Suporn, January 2019 (Thailand)
VFS: Dr Thomas, May 2019 (USA)
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Arch

Most of my jury duty experiences have been pre-transition. The last time, I was far enough into transition--six months--to be regularly read as male; my voice was in tenor range, and I'd had top surgery. My name wasn't called until the afternoon. We all dutifully trooped upstairs and sat around while the attorneys apparently came to an eleventh-hour plea deal. After that, I was free to go.

I've been called about half a dozen times and have sat on only one jury.

The time before last--pre-transition--was actually the only time I experienced any weirdness. I got to the voir dire stage on a sexual assault case. I was back in the closet about as far as I could go, but I still had a very masculine presentation and, of course, the male name, since I had changed my name well before transition. I guess I came across as a typical male hardass professorial type because I said that my students had to work hard for their grades, or some such thing.

Since I was so deep in denial, I'd never considered the possibility that I would run into any "gender trouble." Naturally, I disclosed, in front of God and everyone, that I had previously been sexually assaulted. Since women are routinely sexually assaulted, I also had not considered the option of disclosing in camera. My goodness, what a scene; the entire room just stopped, and time stood still. The other people in the jury box were staring at me and shifting around uncomfortably, the people sitting right next to me were sort of shrinking away from me, and I stopped the attorney cold right in the middle of his questions. I didn't even realize exactly why everyone was so freaked out until later, when I allowed myself to "realize" that I was trans and had been read as male. How many men just blurt out in public, very matter-of-factly, that they have been raped? Yeah, not too many.

Naturally, I was not chosen to serve on that jury.
"The hammer is my penis." --Captain Hammer

"When all you have is a hammer . . ." --Anonymous carpenter
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Kylo

I'm not registered to vote so I don't have to do this. I watched 12 Angry Men last week though and now I'm kind of glad I don't have to do this.
"If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter."
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Asche

I was on a Federal (US) grand jury for 2 years.  It left me very, very cynical about the so-called "justice" system.

(Content note: nasty observations about the US federal grand jury system.)




You spend your two years (not every day, fortunately!!) with the AUSA's (assistant US attorneys), the sometimes cooperative, sometimes terrified and intimidated witnesses, and your other jurors, most of whom don't want to be there and will do whatever it takes to get out as soon as possible.  You quickly become aware that grand juries are entirely used to:

a.  allow the AUSAs to do things they wouldn't ordinarily be able to do by pretending it's the grand jury that's doing them.  (I can't count the number of times that during a hearing an AUSA talked about subpoenas and immunities that our grand jury supposedly issued which we were hearing about for the first time.)

b.   threaten and browbeat witnesses into saying what the AUSA wants to hear,

c.  get all kinds of testimony into the record without anyone questioning it.

d.  rubber-stamp indictments.

Justice plays no part in any of this.  Putting people away isn't the most important thing, it's the only thing.

Virtually all grand jurors think this is entirely proper and to disagree with any part of it is un-American.  You would not believe the crap you get from everyone (jurors and attorneys)  if you so much as ask questions about the pre-written indictment the AUSA hands you.  And one day, in the break room, I dared to mention to some other jurors that our job as grand jurors is to view the prosecution's case with some skepticism, and I was later told that the grand jury administrators got a lot of complaints from other jurors about me saying that.

And don't get me started about how poor defendents' cases are handled.  By the end of my two years, I had become convinced that in the US, you get only as much justice as you can afford.
"...  I think I'm great just the way I am, and so are you." -- Jazz Jennings



CPTSD
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Joelene9

Quote from: Ellement_of_Freedom on June 05, 2016, 02:35:03 AM
Um. I'm guessing that person is no longer a judge. Lol
No. He was a good judge. He looked like a tiny version of Martin Sheen in the face. He had a bigger presence in the courtroom than the lookalike actor in the movies. That judge overturned an anti-gay ruling. He retired years later at 72.

Joelene
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HappyMoni

I guess I would view jury duty as a chance for some fellow citizens to see close up the horrible truth about transgender people, that we are normal everyday folks who would rather be somewhere else, just like they would.
Moni
If I ever offend you, let me know. It's not what I am about.
"Never let the dark kill your light!"  (SailorMars)

HRT June 11, 2015. (new birthday) - FFS in late June 2016. (Dr. _____=Ugh!) - Full time June 18, 2016 (Yeah! finally) - GCS June 27, 2017. (McGinn=Yeah!) - Under Eye repair from FFS 8/17/17 - Nose surgery-November 20, 2017 (Dr. Papel=Yeah) - Hair Transplant on June 21, 2018 (Dr. Cooley-yeah) - Breast Augmentation on July 10, 2018 (Dr. Basner in Baltimore) - Removed bad scarring from FFS surgery near ears and hairline in August, 2018 (Dr. Papel) -Sept. 2018, starting a skin regiment on face with Retin A  April 2019 -repairing neck scar from FFS

]
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JoanneB

As the (sad) old joke goes:
A persecutor can get a Grand Jury to Indict a Ham Sandwich.

Quote from: Asche on June 05, 2016, 07:12:16 AM
I was on a Federal (US) grand jury for 2 years.  It left me very, very cynical about the so-called "justice" system.

(Content note: nasty observations about the US federal grand jury system.)




You spend your two years (not every day, fortunately!!) with the AUSA's (assistant US attorneys), the sometimes cooperative, sometimes terrified and intimidated witnesses, and your other jurors, most of whom don't want to be there and will do whatever it takes to get out as soon as possible.  You quickly become aware that grand juries are entirely used to:

a.  allow the AUSAs to do things they wouldn't ordinarily be able to do by pretending it's the grand jury that's doing them.  (I can't count the number of times that during a hearing an AUSA talked about subpoenas and immunities that our grand jury supposedly issued which we were hearing about for the first time.)

b.   threaten and browbeat witnesses into saying what the AUSA wants to hear,

c.  get all kinds of testimony into the record without anyone questioning it.

d.  rubber-stamp indictments.

Justice plays no part in any of this.  Putting people away isn't the most important thing, it's the only thing.

Virtually all grand jurors think this is entirely proper and to disagree with any part of it is un-American.  You would not believe the crap you get from everyone (jurors and attorneys)  if you so much as ask questions about the pre-written indictment the AUSA hands you.  And one day, in the break room, I dared to mention to some other jurors that our job as grand jurors is to view the prosecution's case with some skepticism, and I was later told that the grand jury administrators got a lot of complaints from other jurors about me saying that.

And don't get me started about how poor defendents' cases are handled.  By the end of my two years, I had become convinced that in the US, you get only as much justice as you can afford.
.          (Pile Driver)  
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(ROCK) ---> ME <--- (HARD PLACE)
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Ms Grace

Well, I'm out the door to go to court in about two hours. Lucky me it is only a ten minute walk...

Quote from: JoanneB on June 05, 2016, 03:28:37 PM
As the (sad) old joke goes:
A persecutor can get a Grand Jury to Indict a Ham Sandwich.

I don't think we have grand juries in Australia!
Grace
----------------------------------------------
Transition 1.0 (Julie): HRT 1989-91
Self-denial: 1991-2013
Transition 2.0 (Grace): HRT June 24 2013
Full-time: March 24, 2014 :D
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Asche

Quote from: JoanneB on June 05, 2016, 03:28:37 PM
As the (sad) old joke goes:
A persecutor can get a Grand Jury to Indict a Ham Sandwich.

I no longer think that's a joke.

BTW, I love how you turned "prosecutor" into "persecutor."


ETA:

The reason the USA has grand juries (at the federal level) is that the right to a grand jury is enshrined in the US constitution.  It would take a constitutional amendment to abolish them.  (Defendants can waive their right to one, though.)

At the time the constitution was written, trust in a government superior to the individual states (formerly the 13 colonies) was low, due to experiences with the English government, so it was assumed that a jury composed of upstanding citizens would be a protection against the tyranny of a national government.

For the same reason, it was also assumed that the individual states would be a better protector of the rights of citizens than the national government.

Now, some 225 years later, things have reversed.  Grand juries are at least as happy to throw the book at anyone the national government hands over to them as the AUSAs are and they're less constrained by any understanding of the law.  And it is now the national government that (sometimes) protects citizens from the tyrannies of the states.
"...  I think I'm great just the way I am, and so are you." -- Jazz Jennings



CPTSD
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Ms Grace

Well, phew... I didn't get empanelled. But I did have to hang around with about 120 or so equally unenthusiastic people for three hours before I got told I wouldn't be needed. The good news is that I'm now off the roll for selection for at least the next year now. Given this is the first time in my life I'd been placed on the roll - with those odds - I might be 100 before they call me up again! ;D
Grace
----------------------------------------------
Transition 1.0 (Julie): HRT 1989-91
Self-denial: 1991-2013
Transition 2.0 (Grace): HRT June 24 2013
Full-time: March 24, 2014 :D
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Tessa James

Good for you Grace,

I share some of the same experiences as others here and cynically do not consider our "system" much about justice.  I served before transition and reported after I started transition but was not empaneled.  I'll report again in August. The prosecution and defense are allowed to question and dismiss us as they search for those most likely inclined in their favor.  My idle speculation is that a queer transgender person like myself might be considered unreliable for either faction, I'm non binary ;) ;D
Open, out and evolving queer trans person forever with HRT support since March 13, 2013
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