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| Day 2 of Jury duty has ended. |
by radiowave911 |
2006-08-08 13:40:29 |
(No, I don't plan on posting this again in 3 and a half hours - thanks for asking)
I actually got into a courtroom today, but was passed over for the jury. That means I am no longer part of a specifig panel of potential jurors and am back in the pool to be picked for another panel later this week (potentially). It does not mean I am done for the week.
I did learn a bit more about the selection process, though. There are two ways that jurors can be questioned in the selection - individually or as a group. The group is used in most cases, and is much quicker. There is only 1 instance where individual is mandated, otherwise it is up to the judge to decide how the jury is chosen.
Once we were seated (in numerical order - this will be important in a bit), the judge asked some basic questions, including if anyone knew the defendant, the defendant's attorney, the detective that is one fo the witnesses, and the assistant DA that is prosecuting the case. One woman was excused at this point because she knew the detective, and felt it would affect her ability to be fair and impartial. That left 34 of us (I was #11).
Once the question had been asked, the prosecuting attorney was given a master list of all people on our specific panel. She then had the option of striking one person from the list (she has 5, 7, or 20 she can strike, one at a time, depending on the specific nature of the crime. THis one gave 7 plus 1 more because of the selection of an alternate). The prosecutor then hands the list to the defending attorney, and he can strike 1 name from the list (the prosecution and defence have the same number they may strike). The list is passed back to the prosecuter for her second chance to strike a name. This goes on until both attorneys have up their chances to strike someone from the list. In the case of our jury selection, this had the potential to eliminate up to 16 people. I don't think all 16 were used.
Once the sheet is handed back to the judge, the first 12 people on the list whose names were not striken are the jurors, the next two are the alternates. I was not selected.
Back again tomorrow for another day.
I saw a couple of questions after my first post yesterday, and I have some answers:
No, Snappingturtle, conjugal visits are not allowed (although there are some....nah, I'd better keep my mouth shut)
Esteis, yesterday I read magazines (had to buy two more at lunch) and chatted with other potential jurors. Today, I took my laptop. no 'net access, but I managed to do the audio and network overviews for the new radio station. Same deal tomorrow.
emlaabs, I answered yesterday, but it was several hours later. I have to report all 5 days, unless otherwise instructed. In theory, you could sit on 5 or more juries. Not likely to happen, though, since no jury trials started yesterday, and the one I sat through the selection for this morning doesn't begin until tomorrow and is expected to take a day and a half.
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