High Tide Aquatics

Jury Duty

I dont mind doing my civic duty but there has to be a better way. I may (or may not) have to report and because I wont know til the last minute - it kinda sucks!! I cannot schedule anything for tomorrow or the whole next week -total loss of income for the self employed. I think a computer should randomly pick 12 people that are your jury. It would be unbiased and the other 480 of us could keep being productive citizens.
 
Well just to drag it out, now I need to call in at 11 and be ready to travel to any court in San Mateo County on short notice.
 
Completely agree with mark. Don't mind doing my part, but the uncertainty and inability to plan ahead are crippling. Especially for us self employed people.
 
It is the only form of institutionalized incarceration of the innocent in our country that I’m aware of.
Whoa there! I beg to differ. If our justice system is based on the premise of "innocent until proven guilty" Then wouldn't that mean that mean that all of those people that are sitting in jail waiting for their court date are presumably innocent? They haven't yet been proven guilty, yet they are suffering from institutionalized incarceration of the innocent?
 
And don't forget the poor, especially poverty stricken minority's. They've been targeted by our government for decades at least. All sorts of laws geared at keeping prisons full.
 
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Whoa there! I beg to differ. If our justice system is based on the premise of "innocent until proven guilty" Then wouldn't that mean that mean that all of those people that are sitting in jail waiting for their court date are presumably innocent? They haven't yet been proven guilty, yet they are suffering from institutionalized incarceration of the innocent?
Well the difference is that they have been formally accused of a crime, so it isn’t the same thing. And people arrested and released on bail are debatably more free than random people forced onto a jury for a long trial.

Though I for sure agree that it is outrageous how long the system can hold someone before they get their day in court. A significant number of times even after they are found guilty and sentenced they have already served their sentence. The flip side is that a huge number of people found innocent have served the same sentence they would have if they were guilty while they were awaiting "justice".
 
Not sure what that means, hopefully I haven't gone too far... but I did forget to include underserved mentally ill people too. I'll stop now and hope this doesn't get too political.
All good! Not political at all. Just an old guy (me) blowin' off some steam. I am better now:confused:
 
My biggest pet peeve is when some system is horribly inefficient, including jury duty. Not saying people aren't trying their best to get this working well, but I've seen a lot more complicated processes streamlined. Incentives are probably the cause (e.g. complicated situations that have a huge monetary upside are iterated on hard.)
 
Didn't they used to give you $5/day to serve on a jury, but the kicker was only if you served more than a single day. That is so wrong on so many levels, first you're only going to pay you after we get a "free" day out of you, and then on top of that $5 a day is a slap in the face.

A quick google shows that it's now $15 in California after the first day, so yay, you can buy yourself lunch.
 
Had to report to the SC Hall of Justice for jury duty a few months back. It was already bad that my day was wasted, but when I was out of lunch, someone took out the right front end of my car and I had to file against my comprehensive for it. Way more painful than it should have been.
 
That's exactly what it is. It's coverage by the insurance company for damages that aren't deemed your fault . It's usually for vandalism, theft (usually under home instead of auto though), etc., where they can't go after the party at fault.
 
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