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In my county, it seems about 100 potential jurors are called in every week for jury duty at the county court house. About that many people show up, anyway. Of those, only a few juries are selected to serve on trials. Juries are about 14 people, maybe less. Most of the 100 people don't end up on a jury.
I'm 50 years old and have now had jury duty 4 times. I've only been on an actual jury once.
During this last jury duty, I think there were only 2 or 3 trials during the week. Let's suppose there may be between 2 and 6 jury trials every week of the year. That would be between 104 and 312 jury trials for the year, including both civil and criminal cases. It doesn't include traffic court or grand jury cases, which have separate jury pools - but I've never yet been called for jury duty for them.
The county's population is about 420,000. I imagine there are way more than 312 indictments here each year.
Waiting in the jury assembly room, I thought about how much trouble is gone through to gather all these people in one room, all to pick a few people for a couple of trials. I thought of how many cases must get plea-bargained, or otherwise never make it to a trial.
.
Ah, wait.
The city proper has its own Municipal Court with its own jury trials.
That may have been where I attended my first jury duty, when I was living at my prior address within city limits.
Yes, an old checkbook register of mine shows an entry from December 2002: $10 pay for 2 days of jury duty.
But both courthouses are downtown. I don't think that jurors for the county cases are restricted to people living outside the city limits. So I am not certain which of them hosted my first jury duty.
I'm 50 years old and have now had jury duty 4 times. I've only been on an actual jury once.
During this last jury duty, I think there were only 2 or 3 trials during the week. Let's suppose there may be between 2 and 6 jury trials every week of the year. That would be between 104 and 312 jury trials for the year, including both civil and criminal cases. It doesn't include traffic court or grand jury cases, which have separate jury pools - but I've never yet been called for jury duty for them.
The county's population is about 420,000. I imagine there are way more than 312 indictments here each year.
Waiting in the jury assembly room, I thought about how much trouble is gone through to gather all these people in one room, all to pick a few people for a couple of trials. I thought of how many cases must get plea-bargained, or otherwise never make it to a trial.
.
Ah, wait.
The city proper has its own Municipal Court with its own jury trials.
That may have been where I attended my first jury duty, when I was living at my prior address within city limits.
Yes, an old checkbook register of mine shows an entry from December 2002: $10 pay for 2 days of jury duty.
But both courthouses are downtown. I don't think that jurors for the county cases are restricted to people living outside the city limits. So I am not certain which of them hosted my first jury duty.