Since so many people seem to despise it would it help if they raised the compensation?
In Michigan, its now $15 for 1st day if only 1/2 day, $30 for first day if its a full day, and $22.50 for every half day ($45 for every full day) after the first. Plus 20 cents a mile, they calculate it from your house to the courthouse.
I wonder if they raised it to $100, $500, $1000? a day if that would change some attitudes?
Should be able to recoup the cost by adding a Jury fee, to all cases. Including if you settle the day of the case. Wonder if cases would move faster or even be dropped if they knew there would be a $7000 ($500x14) a day fee tagged onto the court case.
But then the more financially challenged would argue the courts are only for the wealthy.
You should get paid your hourly rate. The courts have carte blanche on the time they take and they waste a shit ton of time arguing things that should have already been taken care of before the trial.
I understand the right to a fair trial and I would hope that everyone gets their time. I don’t understand why trials like the OJ case took 2 months and other murder trial take 3 days. Casey Anthony, Jodi Arias, all trials that should have taken a week and took months.
I couldn’t live on 100 bucks a day. Civic duty or not, if you can’t compensate me, I can’t sit. Why should I be forced into money issues?
I got $30 for 2 days last fall. Luckily I had just met the prosecutor a few weeks before. His daughter and mine were playing on the same basketball team. Was able say I knew him so I got excused. Murder trial. Lasted for 7 weeks. I get civic duty but I couldn’t live on $15/day for 7 weeks.
Comrade lack of reading comprehension I direct you to the word “should” in the title and suggest you look it up
Your fermented moose milk has too much alcohol. Also just a little tidbit if you get paid you’re supposed to pass through the money to your company
Hmm no that is up to your employer they have the right to ask for it but are not required to. My company thinks its to much effort to try and collect it for the small amount it is so we get to keep it.
I should go into debt, ruin my credit, possibly lose my job because some loser killed someone?
Um no.
Oh, you can just describe your circumstance to the judge, and they’ll let you go. And even if the judge doesn’t, you’d be very unlikely to make it through voir dire. Neither side has much interest in keeping a juror who stridently abhors being there, regardless of the legitimacy of the reasons. (I suspect you’re doing a little drama queen action here for rhetorical effect…)
But we’d be missing out on the unique perspective you might provide. From my perspective on 4 juries, there is an over-representation of retired people and the “the professional middle class.” My juries have been almost exclusively professionals like teachers, doctors, lawyers, firefighters, engineers, etc. What’s missing has been the lower class (Starbucks baristas and car mechanics can’t afford to take a week off) and upper class (the high end lawyers, CEOs of large corporations, etc), whose time is too valuable to even show up.
I have sympathy for the baristas and mechanics. I have less sympathy for your described condition. So I will just roll my eyes as dramatically as I can while you’re making your poverty pitch to the judge.
I should go into debt, ruin my credit, possibly lose my job because some loser killed someone?
Um no.
Oh, you can just describe your circumstance to the judge, and they’ll let you go. And even if the judge doesn’t, you’d be very unlikely to make it through voir dire. Neither side has much interest in keeping a juror who stridently abhors being there, regardless of the legitimacy of the reasons. (I suspect you’re doing a little drama queen action here for rhetorical effect…)
But we’d be missing out on the unique perspective you might provide. From my perspective on 4 juries, there is an over-representation of retired people and the “the professional middle class.” My juries have been almost exclusively professionals like teachers, doctors, lawyers, firefighters, engineers, etc. What’s missing has been the lower class (Starbucks baristas and car mechanics can’t afford to take a week off) and upper class (the high end lawyers, CEOs of large corporations, etc), whose time is too valuable to even show up.
I have sympathy for the baristas and mechanics. I have less sympathy for your described condition. So I will just roll my eyes as dramatically as I can while you’re making your poverty pitch to the judge.
Hold on there buckaroo. I’ve sat on two criminal juries and one civil trial. All the cases were under a week. I’m willing to forgo the weeks pay to serve. It’s the long trials that I don’t agree with.
Sitting on a grand jury or federal court is terrible
That said, in the trials of that nature where I’ve been called the very first question is “If you can’t take a month out of your life, get up and leave now no questions asked. Thank you for your service, and you won’t be called up for another year.” I got up and left on those - fair enough. For those trials I think they end up with a lot of retired people. Which is going to skew the pool a bit with generational attitudes (if I was LGBT I’d want some younger people on my jury), but I’m not sure there’s any way around that.