Jury Duty (Part 1)
I get frequent calls and e-mails from people who have been served with a jury notice. Most want to know how to get out of serving on the jury. That makes me sad. And a little angry.
I hate the idea that many people think jury duty is a waste of their time. When I represent clients in front of juries, I hope the jurors are intelligent, attentive, and unbiased. I hope they want to be there.. Do it.
I believe that juries are better than judges. Juries decide cases according to the facts and the conscience of the community. They apply common sense. They bring life experience.
Jurors come from diverse backgrounds. In one of my cases, the jurors included: a gay white mid-40’s male airline customer service agent; a male 20-something Muslim pipe-fitter; a male white mid-50’s railroad checker; a female white mid-20s bank customer care representative; a female white mid-40s professional voice talent; a female late-30’s Hindu residential care aide; a male white early-60’s retired agri-business executive and racehorse breeder; and a male mid-40’s Sikh longshoreman. The longshoreman was the foreman of the jury. Imagine the life experience they brought to the case!
When jurors (8 for civil cases, 12 for criminal) decide a case, they have to discuss it. They have to explain their thinking to each other. They have to convince each other.
Judges don’t have to convince anyone. They become convinced of the decision, then write a judgment explaining how they got there. Many judgments are written not so much to explain why the judge made the decision, but more to prevent the Court of Appeal from overturning it. Judges come from narrow backgrounds. Few have any scientific training or experience.
Lawyers usually find out who their judge will be the day before the case starts. We get on the phone, email our friends, and Google the judge. We want to know this judge’s quirks and biases. Does he hate staying late, but will happily start early? Does she have a “thing” about objections? Is he ignorant about this area of law? Does she talk during the trial – letting the lawyers know what she’s thinking? Or does she sit there stone-faced? The case will be decided by this one person — with their unique prejudices and proclivities.
Judges often become callous – only a judge could say “As rapes go, this one wasn’t too bad”. Judges often become detached from real life – most judges have no idea what food costs, or why people can’t afford medical or dental care. Judges are by definition smart: seven years of university is proof of that. But they often lack common sense. And they are SLOW. The average time it takes a judge to give a decision after a trial, is TWENTY-NINE times the length of the trial. Ten day trial: 290 days before the decision. ON AVERAGE. Many take much longer. By the time judges start to write their decisions, they may have forgotten many details of the evidence.
A judge has dozens of cases on his workload at any one time. She may be sitting on a ten-day car crash case and during those two weeks have to hear a bail application, sentence a convicted criminal, preside on three pre-trial hearings, hear an emergency child access case, publish her judgment in two other cases, and speak at a local school. They are swamped!
Jurors have one case. The law requires they be given time off for the case. Most union jobs provide paid time off for jury duty.
Juries decide cases fast: typically within a day or two, regardless how long the trial was. The Pickton murder trial lasted from 22 January to 27 November 2007. The jury took just nine days to reach its verdict – apparently slowed because the trial judge had given an inaccurate explanation of the law. After six days, the jury asked for clarification. When the judge gave the correct explanation of the law, the jury took just three days to convict Pickton of six counts of murder.
If you get summoned for jury duty, don’t make an excuse to avoid it. See this as one of the most important things you’ll ever do. As a juror, you will decide what is true. You will decide what justice is. You will speak for society