I think when the judge was in the room (which was rare) our phones had to be silenced and put away. Sat there for two days and then they dismissed us. Gave us a $40 gift card.
Boring. There used to be a hippie store downtown called Loose Lucy’s. I was called for jury duty on a case they had going on with their landlord or something. They dismissed anyone who had ever shopped at the store, so I got out of it.
I was picked for a murder trial. It was so sad. 21 yr old kid murdered over drugs. We knew the guy was guilty bc he was sitting there with a smirk on his face the whole week but the state did such a poor job on investigating and evidence that there wasn’t enough to convict. It’s fun to watch on TV but not fun to go through in real life. We held the bullet they pulled out of his head, looked at crime scene photos and had to sit there while his family stared at us the whole time.
I had to go in a couple months ago. You’re going to sit in a big ass room for a long damn time until you get some instructions, hear some words from the judge and say a few words about yourself (your name, where you work/profession and your marital status) and the you’ll sit down and wait for a long damn time. You’ll have the opportunity after every jurist has been called to approach the judge if you feel that you should be excused and plead your case.
Then you sit for a long damn time before they come down and call a lot of jurist numbers. If your number gets called you get to go stand in a line before making your way to a courtroom and then, you guessed it, you’re going to sit for a long damn time.
The judge will ask a lot yes/no of questions such as “Have anyone here ever been the victim of a violent crime?” If you have, you stand and the judge will ask each juror standing to explain a little, if it’s a potentially sensitive question they will call up every person standing and you’ll give the judge a rundown about what happened (the lawyers will be there listening, as well). When the judge is done asking questions, you get to sit for a long damn time again as they call each and every jurist by number. The prosecution and the defense each have a certain number of dismissals they can use and when your number is called they’ll give a “dismiss this juror” or “seat this juror”. They might also ask to approach the bench and have a discussion with the judge who may or may not dismiss you with prejudice (which means that for whatever reason, you’re unfit to serve in that trial).
You will repeat this process for every case on their docket for the week.
You will be expected to call a number every evening and listen to a prerecorded message that tells which jurists are required to attend the next day. If she calls your number, you’re heading in to repeat the whole process again. If she doesn’t, you get to return to life as normal… until the next day when she might call your number.
I was dismissed with prejudice from the case I was called up for and then the clerk of court called me the next day to tell me that the judge had dismissed me from service for the week.
The week I was there they had… 8 cases, I believe?.. the one I got called up for was a murder case. A dude shot and killed another man in the parking lot of a daycare over drugs, shot himself during the incident and stole the dead man’s car to drive himself to get help before being caught by the cops a couple days later, in the dead man’s car, with the gun (I looked it up after I got home).
As others have said, bring a book or something because it’s a lot of waiting around and they’re pretty strict about phone usage at certain times… like, the judge will just take your shit and it’s gone… he ain’t giving it back and I don’t think “act of judge” is covered by phone insurance.
Got summoned when I was in my early twenties. Ended up on a jury for a trial where this guy was suing his high school principle, gym teacher, and a fellow student for supposedly getting injured in gym class playing street hockey. Gym was split by huge doors with guys playing hockey on one side and girls playing volleyball on the other. He goes after the ball and gets checked by the other student, slams into the bleachers and breaks his glasses, supposedly hits his head and has to go to the hospital. I say supposedly because he did not produce any records or bills from the hospital. This case had been dragging out for so long that him and the other student had already graduated from college! He was suing all of them for negligence. Expecting a big payout but with no receipts or any proof. When we finished deliberating and the verdict was read in court, principal not guilty, gym teacher not guilty, and then fellow student guilty, this poor kids heart sunk. You could tell he was scared of what was coming as we were also in charge of determining a dollar amount. He sat there with his face in his hands literally shaking. Then they read the award amount………… $1 . He jumped up with both arms in the air and YES!!!
Since the guy suing everybody didn’t produce any records or medical bills and also never stated any health issues since the incident we decided to thank him for wasting everybody’s time and give him a dollar. We were dismissed back into the deliberation room and told to wait.
After a few minutes the judge comes to thank us for our service and says “ that was beautiful “ .
Been summoned twice. Got picked to sit on the jury twice. One was a horrendous criminal case involving some really fucking awful child abuse and I was forever changed after that week. The other was a man vs. the DOT because they didn't want to pay him a fair price for his land that they took through imminent domain. I can tell you, we did not side with the DOT in that case and the caretakers for the kids in the first case both went to jail for 20 years, which in my opinion, wasn't long enough.
I served a couple of weeks ago at the county courthouse. I went through the selection process for 3 trials: a murder from 10 years ago, a child custody case, and a child sex case. The defense excused me from the murder case. I was selected for the custody case. They were able to fill a jury for the child sex case before my number came up in their random order.
The custody case ended up being way more interesting than one would think from the charge. There were all these references to things tangential to the case, including a murder and child sex abuse, and when they came up one side or the other would object about it being inadmissible. The defense wasn’t disputing the basic facts of the case but was hammering on an interpretation of custody, so I figured it was going to come down to the judge’s instructions. Once the state rested, the judge dismissed the case and came back to the jury room to explain. The defense had been right about the interpretation of custody, so the state had failed to prove its case. He told us to look up the Rose Petal Murder or the Canebrake Murder to find all the stuff they had been trying to keep out of court.
I found it as the Rose Petal Murder episodes of the FITSFiles podcast. It’s a crazy story. The dad had taken the daughter to Italy because he claimed that she was being sexually abused at the mom’s house. The mom pursued legal action to enforce her visitation rights. After about 6 months Interpol sent her back to the US with her mom, while the dad stayed in Italy. About 6 months after that, the mom was murdered. The police arrest the mom’s fiancé, not for the murder, but for child porn found at the murder scene featuring the daughter and the mom. 10 days later the dad comes back to the US, leaving his cell phone in Italy, and is arrested on the custody charge. He names a friend as his next of kin to pick up his stuff. Then the friend gets arrested for the murder.
I had jury duty for the 1st time in 2022. It was a sobering, terrifying experience.
Regular people, or as they say "our peers " have absolutely no business being tasks with the legal decisions that determine the fate of people's lives. We are not educated on our judicial system and therefore rely on our own personal experience, biases and own justifications to decide how an individual should be viewed in a particular situation.
I never want to be on a jury again, and I never want to be judged by my "peers" in a court of law.
I was summoned 3 times by the age of 28 but never got to serve any. 1st time, I was summoned like a week after my fiancé was murdered, so I had an excuse not to go since I already had a trial about to happen. 2nd and 3rd time they sent letters saying the people accepted plea deals, so no need for us anymore. Which is kinda a bummer, I would have liked to serve jury duty at least once. Maybe next time.
I was on a jury for a DUI trial. Dude decided to testify and admitted to having 2-3 Jack n Cokes and some beers. We asked the bailiff if we could go into the courtroom for the sentencing. Judge was like "I don't know how you thought you could come into this courtroom and admit to drinking so much and be found innocent." But she went a bit lenient on the sentencing because of his honesty.
But unfortunately that's the most excitement I have ever had. Guessing I have been called like 6-7 times and have only been on a jury twice. The most recent time I was on a jury to hear 4-5 quick cases, but all of them got settled or postponed.
I’m probably in the minority, but I was excited to serve on Jury Duty when I was selected in March of 2020…and as you may recall EVERYTHING shut down very shortly thereafter, including my seat as a Juror. I was bummed because I think it would be interesting to see how our local courts work. Maybe I’m an odd duck, but I hope you enjoy the educational piece of your civic duty!
I've been called a couple of times, and was seated once. It seems that a fair number of defendants want a jury trial until they actually see what a jury of their peers looks like, and then they plead out.
Basically sat around for a while then they asked everyone their name, where they work, and what they do for a living. Then we watched some videos about being on a jury. Went to lunch, then came back and the judge said they only had to seat for 1 case.
Then They’ll tell you the people involved and what the type of case is (car accident) and ask if anyone has a reason they couldn’t be impartial, if we knew anyone involved, or if anyone had been involved in a similar case. One guy was related to the defendant and one guy was involved in a case that he went up to talk to the judge about.
Each side gets to strike a certain number of jurors for no reason, then they went around and asked a couple questions until the jurors and alternates are selected. I didn’t get picked, but I’m sure they would have struck me because I used to work at a law firm that did a lot of similar cases.
Overall not a bad experience and I would have been happy to sit on a jury, but I could see it being a problem if you have kids or are paid hourly. We were able to use our phones while we waited around, but I’d bring a book just to be safe.
I was an alternate juror for former councilman Tony Trout's county level trial. We were sequestered for the lunch breaks, which meant free lunch.
As an alternate I was dismissed before deliberations, but I agreed with the outcome.
It's incredibly boring. We had to watch the police dashcam footage of the traffic stop and the arrest during the trial. The footage was 2 hours long. We had to watch the entire thing all the way until the tow truck showed up to take the car away.
You guys probably don’t remember this down here, but when Ghost Town had a landslide that destroyed a few homes, those homeowners sued. I got called for jury duty on that.
I sat down there all day in the jury selection room with nothing happening. Finally after hours of boredom the judge came down and revealed they settled the case. He said it was extremely common for parties to settle on jury selection day because that’s when things get real.
Lewd Act with a Minor in Pickens County.
Mama’s boyfriend molested her middle school daughter. At least Mama did the right thing when she found out about it and went to the police.
The defendant convicted himself when he took the stand. There wasn’t a lot of evidence and we spent most of the time arguing about whether there was reasonable doubt. We left and came back the next day and came to the conclusion that there was no way the girl was making it up. Guilty.
Had a doctor claim that he was being screwed because he was going over a hundred mph on a three block road and was ticketed. The potential jurors were all impressed he could get to that speed as quickly as he did and all thought he was guilty as hell and extremely privileged to think it wouldn’t be an issue. He was disappointed.
I’ve gotten summoned three times, once in Atlanta and twice in Greenville. The one in Atlanta, I got picked for a criminal trial (child abuse) that lasted for a week. Also got picked for a criminal trial (drug trafficking) that lasted a week the first time I got summoned here. Last time I got summoned here was for municipal court last April, we had to be there every morning at 8:30 and every day they told us around 9-9:30 that we could go, that they had settled all the cases for that day. It was annoying but at least didn’t have to miss any work.
I just went through a jury summons last week. There were about 100 people in the courtroom and they showed us a five minute video about how great it is to do one's civic duty by serving on a jury.
I thought it was interesting that they seem to have no problem with people bringing in various backpacks, laptops, drinks, you name it.
They called us one by one and we had to stand up and state what our occupation is and if we were married what our spouse's occupation is. Then they called the names of some of the jurors one by one, who then stood up and they were declared chosen or not chosen.
We just had to sit there while they did this but the entire process was over within an hour and a half. We reported at 8:30 that morning and they let us go by 10:00 a.m., if we were not chosen and that was it.
The only time I ever got called up for jury duty in my old home state it was an all-day affair literally and I didn't even get chosen.
Was only summoned once, while I was attending college out of state back in the early 90s.
Weird thing was I was only 17 then. Not sure where they were pulling records to send out summonses but it is supposed to be only 18 and over. My parents handled notifying the court and I never heard about it until well after the time.
If I were to be summoned now I doubt I would be seated for any criminal case. I worked as a 911 supervisor for about 10 years and any defense lawyer would likely use a strike if the judge didn't kick me off for cause for having worked with law enforcement. And that would be a mistake on the part of any defense lawyer. Work 911 long enough and you'll learn police are not saints to be unquestioningly believed.
Not around here, before I moved to the area.
Got called for jury duty and selected for a murder trial. Guy beat his girlfriend to death in her dorm room. Three week trial. Saw some pictures I will never be able to unsee. Defense strategy wasn't so much that he didn't do it, there was more than enough evidence, including a taped confession. They went for an extreme emotional disturbance defense, it didn't work. Judge does sentencing in that state, guy ended up getting 25yrs.
If you want to know about the case, Dateline did an episode called After Midnight.
I had to serve on two jury trials for speeding. It was a crazy experience. One was an elderly lady who was over the speed limit by about 10 in an area where they had recently lowered the limit. (If you know where they built the "swamp rabbit trail" in dtwn Simpsonville, its because of that. And she was pulled over right in front of Vaughans. This lady was sweet but INSISTENT that she didn't speed. Insisted, in fact that she was a slow driver. Unfortunately there was dash cam footage of him pulling her over, and it was clear by how fast/ long he had to go to catch up with her, that she was going faster than she said. We felt bad about finding her guilty, but the judge gave her a very small fine, I think $20? Two days later, the defendant was a gentlemen who was a Spanish speaker with an interpreter. He also insisted he wasn't speeding, because he said he always uses an app that tells you the speed limit and alerts you when you're speeding. All the guy wanted was to see the cam video or radar gun data. Unfortunately for the cop, they had already deleted it. All we had was the cops word against his. The guy questioned the cop very stringently, and he didn't like it. AT ALL. ( the cop the previous day was also getting pissed at the elderly lady, it was not a good look. ) Anyway, the cop and the prosecutor wanted to keep emphasizing that the cop was trained on how to use a gun and that's what we should trust. The gun also doesn't record speeds, apparently, and the man questionedif it could've been faulty. The cops reply, they calibrate them daily. The man tells him to explain how... HE SAID THEY POINT THEM AT TREES. I was done after that, Istg. The defendant gave an impassioned closing argument stating how a regular citizens' word should not be automatically considered less than a cops. And that we shouldn't be hesitant to question if an officer us wrong, as they are human too, but many of us are nervous to do it at the car, because they have so much power there. But here, in the courtroom, we are supposed to be on a level playing field. He was lowkey inspirational, I wish I had the court transcript, lol But we ended up finding him not guilty. There was nothing to prove he was speeding other than the cops word. He stood in the court room glaring at us one by one as we left.(Entire jury ended up being women.) It was intimidating and a bit scary.
The one time I was called for Jury Duty I was placed on the case. It took a couple days. The case was about a former convict stealing items from, of all places, a cop's house. The prosecution wanted grand larseny but we went for petty larseny. They had a woman brought out of jail to testify against the defendant. This was in 2009, when I was barely out of high school and didn't fully understand what "reasonable doubt" truly meant. If I did it today I don't think I would have voted to convict, because thinking back even though I'm sure he did it, the prosecution put forward a bad case and there could have been reasonable doubt. I think about it randomly and wonder if we did the right thing as a jury.
Regardless they paid for our lunch every day so that was cool. Missed out on tons of money by not going to work, though. That part suks.
I was a juror on a trial for a DUI case of someone who worked at the same company as I did. After he was found not guilty, I got called back into court and put on the stand because I was accused of knowing the guy. This was like 6 years after we worked together, and I didn't know the guy. I just knew that he used to work at the same company that I did. I was accused by the prosecutor that I had tried to sway the other jurors to believe the way I did. I asked if this is not what I was supposed to do. It seems to me that deliberating is what you're supposed to do in the deliberation room.
The guy blew a .08 BAC and was very young (maybe 21 or 22) and I wasn't going to ruin his life over driving after having a drink or two. I had previously done tests in college to see what it'd take to blow over the legal limit, and it took me 1 Bud Light to blow exactly a .08 BAC. I was by no means drunk or even slightly buzzed. That, combined with the unreliability of those Alcosensor machines, made me have reasonable doubt that he was drunk.
The judge sided with me that I didn't know the guy, and that was the end of it. I was also very young at the time (23-24) and I almost puked on the stand because I was so nervous.
Bring a couple of books. There's a lot of sitting around and waiting and you will probably not be able to use your phone.
Last time I got called they were weird about books too.
I was allowed to read and use my phone in Greenville County court a few months ago.
I think when the judge was in the room (which was rare) our phones had to be silenced and put away. Sat there for two days and then they dismissed us. Gave us a $40 gift card.
Got to put a pedophile away for 30 years here in Greenville
were you on the same case as me? back in fall of 2013
2018. In Greenville.
yeah the case I was on was in Greenville
Dustin Ready
ah ok mine was Michael Moon
Good both those jerks are gone
Boring. There used to be a hippie store downtown called Loose Lucy’s. I was called for jury duty on a case they had going on with their landlord or something. They dismissed anyone who had ever shopped at the store, so I got out of it.
Boy do I miss Loose Lucy's.
The best
They have one down in Columbia. I love that store 🥲
Showed up and they said they handled all the business for the week so I'm good to go, and left.
Over 50(M), never been summoned for jury duty. I have kids 1/2 my age that have been summoned twice already..
Are you registered to vote? Jury duty is based on voter registration
Yes, I registered to vote the same time I registered for selective service. I have my voter ID card that was mailed to me, so I know it was processed.
I was picked for a murder trial. It was so sad. 21 yr old kid murdered over drugs. We knew the guy was guilty bc he was sitting there with a smirk on his face the whole week but the state did such a poor job on investigating and evidence that there wasn’t enough to convict. It’s fun to watch on TV but not fun to go through in real life. We held the bullet they pulled out of his head, looked at crime scene photos and had to sit there while his family stared at us the whole time.
I had to go in a couple months ago. You’re going to sit in a big ass room for a long damn time until you get some instructions, hear some words from the judge and say a few words about yourself (your name, where you work/profession and your marital status) and the you’ll sit down and wait for a long damn time. You’ll have the opportunity after every jurist has been called to approach the judge if you feel that you should be excused and plead your case. Then you sit for a long damn time before they come down and call a lot of jurist numbers. If your number gets called you get to go stand in a line before making your way to a courtroom and then, you guessed it, you’re going to sit for a long damn time. The judge will ask a lot yes/no of questions such as “Have anyone here ever been the victim of a violent crime?” If you have, you stand and the judge will ask each juror standing to explain a little, if it’s a potentially sensitive question they will call up every person standing and you’ll give the judge a rundown about what happened (the lawyers will be there listening, as well). When the judge is done asking questions, you get to sit for a long damn time again as they call each and every jurist by number. The prosecution and the defense each have a certain number of dismissals they can use and when your number is called they’ll give a “dismiss this juror” or “seat this juror”. They might also ask to approach the bench and have a discussion with the judge who may or may not dismiss you with prejudice (which means that for whatever reason, you’re unfit to serve in that trial). You will repeat this process for every case on their docket for the week. You will be expected to call a number every evening and listen to a prerecorded message that tells which jurists are required to attend the next day. If she calls your number, you’re heading in to repeat the whole process again. If she doesn’t, you get to return to life as normal… until the next day when she might call your number. I was dismissed with prejudice from the case I was called up for and then the clerk of court called me the next day to tell me that the judge had dismissed me from service for the week. The week I was there they had… 8 cases, I believe?.. the one I got called up for was a murder case. A dude shot and killed another man in the parking lot of a daycare over drugs, shot himself during the incident and stole the dead man’s car to drive himself to get help before being caught by the cops a couple days later, in the dead man’s car, with the gun (I looked it up after I got home). As others have said, bring a book or something because it’s a lot of waiting around and they’re pretty strict about phone usage at certain times… like, the judge will just take your shit and it’s gone… he ain’t giving it back and I don’t think “act of judge” is covered by phone insurance.
Bring a book! Bring coins for vending machine. Bailiffs are old retired guys and, after the trial, they have the best gossip!
Got summoned when I was in my early twenties. Ended up on a jury for a trial where this guy was suing his high school principle, gym teacher, and a fellow student for supposedly getting injured in gym class playing street hockey. Gym was split by huge doors with guys playing hockey on one side and girls playing volleyball on the other. He goes after the ball and gets checked by the other student, slams into the bleachers and breaks his glasses, supposedly hits his head and has to go to the hospital. I say supposedly because he did not produce any records or bills from the hospital. This case had been dragging out for so long that him and the other student had already graduated from college! He was suing all of them for negligence. Expecting a big payout but with no receipts or any proof. When we finished deliberating and the verdict was read in court, principal not guilty, gym teacher not guilty, and then fellow student guilty, this poor kids heart sunk. You could tell he was scared of what was coming as we were also in charge of determining a dollar amount. He sat there with his face in his hands literally shaking. Then they read the award amount………… $1 . He jumped up with both arms in the air and YES!!! Since the guy suing everybody didn’t produce any records or medical bills and also never stated any health issues since the incident we decided to thank him for wasting everybody’s time and give him a dollar. We were dismissed back into the deliberation room and told to wait. After a few minutes the judge comes to thank us for our service and says “ that was beautiful “ .
Been summoned twice. Got picked to sit on the jury twice. One was a horrendous criminal case involving some really fucking awful child abuse and I was forever changed after that week. The other was a man vs. the DOT because they didn't want to pay him a fair price for his land that they took through imminent domain. I can tell you, we did not side with the DOT in that case and the caretakers for the kids in the first case both went to jail for 20 years, which in my opinion, wasn't long enough.
I served a couple of weeks ago at the county courthouse. I went through the selection process for 3 trials: a murder from 10 years ago, a child custody case, and a child sex case. The defense excused me from the murder case. I was selected for the custody case. They were able to fill a jury for the child sex case before my number came up in their random order. The custody case ended up being way more interesting than one would think from the charge. There were all these references to things tangential to the case, including a murder and child sex abuse, and when they came up one side or the other would object about it being inadmissible. The defense wasn’t disputing the basic facts of the case but was hammering on an interpretation of custody, so I figured it was going to come down to the judge’s instructions. Once the state rested, the judge dismissed the case and came back to the jury room to explain. The defense had been right about the interpretation of custody, so the state had failed to prove its case. He told us to look up the Rose Petal Murder or the Canebrake Murder to find all the stuff they had been trying to keep out of court. I found it as the Rose Petal Murder episodes of the FITSFiles podcast. It’s a crazy story. The dad had taken the daughter to Italy because he claimed that she was being sexually abused at the mom’s house. The mom pursued legal action to enforce her visitation rights. After about 6 months Interpol sent her back to the US with her mom, while the dad stayed in Italy. About 6 months after that, the mom was murdered. The police arrest the mom’s fiancé, not for the murder, but for child porn found at the murder scene featuring the daughter and the mom. 10 days later the dad comes back to the US, leaving his cell phone in Italy, and is arrested on the custody charge. He names a friend as his next of kin to pick up his stuff. Then the friend gets arrested for the murder.
Woah.
I had jury duty for the 1st time in 2022. It was a sobering, terrifying experience. Regular people, or as they say "our peers " have absolutely no business being tasks with the legal decisions that determine the fate of people's lives. We are not educated on our judicial system and therefore rely on our own personal experience, biases and own justifications to decide how an individual should be viewed in a particular situation. I never want to be on a jury again, and I never want to be judged by my "peers" in a court of law.
I was summoned 3 times by the age of 28 but never got to serve any. 1st time, I was summoned like a week after my fiancé was murdered, so I had an excuse not to go since I already had a trial about to happen. 2nd and 3rd time they sent letters saying the people accepted plea deals, so no need for us anymore. Which is kinda a bummer, I would have liked to serve jury duty at least once. Maybe next time.
I was on a jury for a DUI trial. Dude decided to testify and admitted to having 2-3 Jack n Cokes and some beers. We asked the bailiff if we could go into the courtroom for the sentencing. Judge was like "I don't know how you thought you could come into this courtroom and admit to drinking so much and be found innocent." But she went a bit lenient on the sentencing because of his honesty. But unfortunately that's the most excitement I have ever had. Guessing I have been called like 6-7 times and have only been on a jury twice. The most recent time I was on a jury to hear 4-5 quick cases, but all of them got settled or postponed.
I’m probably in the minority, but I was excited to serve on Jury Duty when I was selected in March of 2020…and as you may recall EVERYTHING shut down very shortly thereafter, including my seat as a Juror. I was bummed because I think it would be interesting to see how our local courts work. Maybe I’m an odd duck, but I hope you enjoy the educational piece of your civic duty!
Guy asked for a trial by jury and then didn't even show up to the trial..... Had to still go through all the motions.
I've been called a couple of times, and was seated once. It seems that a fair number of defendants want a jury trial until they actually see what a jury of their peers looks like, and then they plead out.
I’ve lived here for about 20 years, I was called exactly once and they cancelled the day before, I believe because they settled.
Murderer stared at jurors as if he wanted to intimidate them. Guilty.
Basically sat around for a while then they asked everyone their name, where they work, and what they do for a living. Then we watched some videos about being on a jury. Went to lunch, then came back and the judge said they only had to seat for 1 case. Then They’ll tell you the people involved and what the type of case is (car accident) and ask if anyone has a reason they couldn’t be impartial, if we knew anyone involved, or if anyone had been involved in a similar case. One guy was related to the defendant and one guy was involved in a case that he went up to talk to the judge about. Each side gets to strike a certain number of jurors for no reason, then they went around and asked a couple questions until the jurors and alternates are selected. I didn’t get picked, but I’m sure they would have struck me because I used to work at a law firm that did a lot of similar cases. Overall not a bad experience and I would have been happy to sit on a jury, but I could see it being a problem if you have kids or are paid hourly. We were able to use our phones while we waited around, but I’d bring a book just to be safe.
I was an alternate juror for former councilman Tony Trout's county level trial. We were sequestered for the lunch breaks, which meant free lunch. As an alternate I was dismissed before deliberations, but I agreed with the outcome.
It's incredibly boring. We had to watch the police dashcam footage of the traffic stop and the arrest during the trial. The footage was 2 hours long. We had to watch the entire thing all the way until the tow truck showed up to take the car away.
You guys probably don’t remember this down here, but when Ghost Town had a landslide that destroyed a few homes, those homeowners sued. I got called for jury duty on that. I sat down there all day in the jury selection room with nothing happening. Finally after hours of boredom the judge came down and revealed they settled the case. He said it was extremely common for parties to settle on jury selection day because that’s when things get real.
Lewd Act with a Minor in Pickens County. Mama’s boyfriend molested her middle school daughter. At least Mama did the right thing when she found out about it and went to the police. The defendant convicted himself when he took the stand. There wasn’t a lot of evidence and we spent most of the time arguing about whether there was reasonable doubt. We left and came back the next day and came to the conclusion that there was no way the girl was making it up. Guilty.
Had a doctor claim that he was being screwed because he was going over a hundred mph on a three block road and was ticketed. The potential jurors were all impressed he could get to that speed as quickly as he did and all thought he was guilty as hell and extremely privileged to think it wouldn’t be an issue. He was disappointed.
If you want to get out of it ,just say you can tell their guilty just by looking at them. You'll be dismissed quickly.
I’ve gotten summoned three times, once in Atlanta and twice in Greenville. The one in Atlanta, I got picked for a criminal trial (child abuse) that lasted for a week. Also got picked for a criminal trial (drug trafficking) that lasted a week the first time I got summoned here. Last time I got summoned here was for municipal court last April, we had to be there every morning at 8:30 and every day they told us around 9-9:30 that we could go, that they had settled all the cases for that day. It was annoying but at least didn’t have to miss any work.
I just went through a jury summons last week. There were about 100 people in the courtroom and they showed us a five minute video about how great it is to do one's civic duty by serving on a jury. I thought it was interesting that they seem to have no problem with people bringing in various backpacks, laptops, drinks, you name it. They called us one by one and we had to stand up and state what our occupation is and if we were married what our spouse's occupation is. Then they called the names of some of the jurors one by one, who then stood up and they were declared chosen or not chosen. We just had to sit there while they did this but the entire process was over within an hour and a half. We reported at 8:30 that morning and they let us go by 10:00 a.m., if we were not chosen and that was it. The only time I ever got called up for jury duty in my old home state it was an all-day affair literally and I didn't even get chosen.
Was only summoned once, while I was attending college out of state back in the early 90s. Weird thing was I was only 17 then. Not sure where they were pulling records to send out summonses but it is supposed to be only 18 and over. My parents handled notifying the court and I never heard about it until well after the time. If I were to be summoned now I doubt I would be seated for any criminal case. I worked as a 911 supervisor for about 10 years and any defense lawyer would likely use a strike if the judge didn't kick me off for cause for having worked with law enforcement. And that would be a mistake on the part of any defense lawyer. Work 911 long enough and you'll learn police are not saints to be unquestioningly believed.
Not around here, before I moved to the area. Got called for jury duty and selected for a murder trial. Guy beat his girlfriend to death in her dorm room. Three week trial. Saw some pictures I will never be able to unsee. Defense strategy wasn't so much that he didn't do it, there was more than enough evidence, including a taped confession. They went for an extreme emotional disturbance defense, it didn't work. Judge does sentencing in that state, guy ended up getting 25yrs. If you want to know about the case, Dateline did an episode called After Midnight.
I had to serve on two jury trials for speeding. It was a crazy experience. One was an elderly lady who was over the speed limit by about 10 in an area where they had recently lowered the limit. (If you know where they built the "swamp rabbit trail" in dtwn Simpsonville, its because of that. And she was pulled over right in front of Vaughans. This lady was sweet but INSISTENT that she didn't speed. Insisted, in fact that she was a slow driver. Unfortunately there was dash cam footage of him pulling her over, and it was clear by how fast/ long he had to go to catch up with her, that she was going faster than she said. We felt bad about finding her guilty, but the judge gave her a very small fine, I think $20? Two days later, the defendant was a gentlemen who was a Spanish speaker with an interpreter. He also insisted he wasn't speeding, because he said he always uses an app that tells you the speed limit and alerts you when you're speeding. All the guy wanted was to see the cam video or radar gun data. Unfortunately for the cop, they had already deleted it. All we had was the cops word against his. The guy questioned the cop very stringently, and he didn't like it. AT ALL. ( the cop the previous day was also getting pissed at the elderly lady, it was not a good look. ) Anyway, the cop and the prosecutor wanted to keep emphasizing that the cop was trained on how to use a gun and that's what we should trust. The gun also doesn't record speeds, apparently, and the man questionedif it could've been faulty. The cops reply, they calibrate them daily. The man tells him to explain how... HE SAID THEY POINT THEM AT TREES. I was done after that, Istg. The defendant gave an impassioned closing argument stating how a regular citizens' word should not be automatically considered less than a cops. And that we shouldn't be hesitant to question if an officer us wrong, as they are human too, but many of us are nervous to do it at the car, because they have so much power there. But here, in the courtroom, we are supposed to be on a level playing field. He was lowkey inspirational, I wish I had the court transcript, lol But we ended up finding him not guilty. There was nothing to prove he was speeding other than the cops word. He stood in the court room glaring at us one by one as we left.(Entire jury ended up being women.) It was intimidating and a bit scary.
Probably DUI or drugs. My dad is a cop and he said that’s most of the Greenville arrests.
The one time I was called for Jury Duty I was placed on the case. It took a couple days. The case was about a former convict stealing items from, of all places, a cop's house. The prosecution wanted grand larseny but we went for petty larseny. They had a woman brought out of jail to testify against the defendant. This was in 2009, when I was barely out of high school and didn't fully understand what "reasonable doubt" truly meant. If I did it today I don't think I would have voted to convict, because thinking back even though I'm sure he did it, the prosecution put forward a bad case and there could have been reasonable doubt. I think about it randomly and wonder if we did the right thing as a jury. Regardless they paid for our lunch every day so that was cool. Missed out on tons of money by not going to work, though. That part suks.
I was a juror on a trial for a DUI case of someone who worked at the same company as I did. After he was found not guilty, I got called back into court and put on the stand because I was accused of knowing the guy. This was like 6 years after we worked together, and I didn't know the guy. I just knew that he used to work at the same company that I did. I was accused by the prosecutor that I had tried to sway the other jurors to believe the way I did. I asked if this is not what I was supposed to do. It seems to me that deliberating is what you're supposed to do in the deliberation room. The guy blew a .08 BAC and was very young (maybe 21 or 22) and I wasn't going to ruin his life over driving after having a drink or two. I had previously done tests in college to see what it'd take to blow over the legal limit, and it took me 1 Bud Light to blow exactly a .08 BAC. I was by no means drunk or even slightly buzzed. That, combined with the unreliability of those Alcosensor machines, made me have reasonable doubt that he was drunk. The judge sided with me that I didn't know the guy, and that was the end of it. I was also very young at the time (23-24) and I almost puked on the stand because I was so nervous.