How often should people be called to serve on jury duty?
This question relates to the topic of whether people should be allowed to volunteer for jury service, and if so, how often. In my opinion, it is simply “too much” to summon someone once every two years for jury service. Nothing is “set in stone” when it comes to this matter, and indeed policies and procedures can and do change. When I lived in Queens, NY, the policy at one point was to summon people no more often than every two years. It later become four years, and at the time that I left, the court district was in the process of changing it to six.
In my opinion, it is reasonable to summon a person no more often than once every four years. It is also my opinion that a person should be able to volunteer for service as long as s/he has not served on an actual jury in the past twelve months. (I would be willing to compromise and stretch that figure to every two years to appease those who are concerned about potential corruption). If we had more volunteers (and it should be noted that plenty of people don't mind serving), there would be less need to summon people who don't want to serve, and who will waste taxpayer money and the court's time as they finagle their way out of serving. The topic of volunteering for jury duty is discussed elsewhere in the book.
If the policy is such that the juror is to call a hotline the night before his/her date of service to see if s/he is needed, and it turns out that s/he is not, s/he should not be summoned for at least one year since s/he had to rearrange his/her schedule to be prepared for service that day.
I am also in favor of the so-called “one-day/one-case” system which will typically result in a juror serving just one day (if needed at all), or less commonly two or three days. This system seems as though it is becoming more of the norm in our nation's court districts. If jury selection and/or a case is expected to take longer than three days, a juror should be able to excuse him/herself by merely stating (without a detailed explanation) that such will be a hardship, and s/he should instead be switched to a case or jury pool that will not take as long, if such is available that day. Grand jury duty which typically requires a very lengthy time commitment on the part of jurors should never be mandatory, and jurors who are summoned for such should be able to easily and without question switch their service to a trial jury pool which utilizes a system of “one-day/one-case.”
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In my opinion, it is reasonable to summon a person no more often than once every four years. It is also my opinion that a person should be able to volunteer for service as long as s/he has not served on an actual jury in the past twelve months. (I would be willing to compromise and stretch that figure to every two years to appease those who are concerned about potential corruption). If we had more volunteers (and it should be noted that plenty of people don't mind serving), there would be less need to summon people who don't want to serve, and who will waste taxpayer money and the court's time as they finagle their way out of serving. The topic of volunteering for jury duty is discussed elsewhere in the book.
If the policy is such that the juror is to call a hotline the night before his/her date of service to see if s/he is needed, and it turns out that s/he is not, s/he should not be summoned for at least one year since s/he had to rearrange his/her schedule to be prepared for service that day.
I am also in favor of the so-called “one-day/one-case” system which will typically result in a juror serving just one day (if needed at all), or less commonly two or three days. This system seems as though it is becoming more of the norm in our nation's court districts. If jury selection and/or a case is expected to take longer than three days, a juror should be able to excuse him/herself by merely stating (without a detailed explanation) that such will be a hardship, and s/he should instead be switched to a case or jury pool that will not take as long, if such is available that day. Grand jury duty which typically requires a very lengthy time commitment on the part of jurors should never be mandatory, and jurors who are summoned for such should be able to easily and without question switch their service to a trial jury pool which utilizes a system of “one-day/one-case.”
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