Jury Service Summons anyone ?

I was called up about 20 years ago. I served on a murder case. All members of the jury took the case very seriously and all gave a lot of thought to the evidence and verdict. We had to because we knew that if we found a guilty man innocent then we were not giving justice to the victim but if we found an innocent man guilty we were going to send him to prison for a long, long time.

I don't like the idea of a professional jury. Over time they're bound to become jaded and, unintentionally, second guess the evidence having seen similar so many times before. A jury of peers brings a range of people into service who listen and see the evidence with fresh ears and eyes. We took it very seriously because we were new to the system and also, we wanted to be absolutely sure for our own consciences. A professional jurist (like the barristers and court officials) could end up simply seeing it as just another job. Today a motorist, next week a fraud, next week a burglar etc. In fact they'd have to in order to protect themselves i.e. give a verdict and then move on.

25Avalon

You can’t usually not attend jury service without a medical reason. What you can do if you are on holiday is make application to have jury service deferred and you will be called at a later date. I think you can only do this once. I did it because dh was just home from a serious heart operation and got called 6 months later.

It was the most boring experience waiting to see if you were called. On day 3 seven of us were told we weren’t needed and could go home. Cos of dh’s health I was one of the lucky ones

25Avalon ,
Well , I’m sure to find out very soon🤔

I’ve never been called and being self employed I was quite glad . Now I’m retired I’d really like to do it .
I find the selection process very strange as some people are called several times and others are never called .
As for professional jurors , I think in some cases , they could be helpful. My cousin had a very complicated fraud case . It involved several big financial companies and my cousin although intelligent found it difficult to follow .

NanaTuesday

Arrived home yesterday evening , opened a letter not official looking in anyway ,posted with a 2nd class stamp in white envelope .
Inviting me to Jury service .
I have always wanted to do this, I don’t know why ,but have had conversations about it recently funnily enough ,saying that my time is limited as there is a cut off age limit ☹️
Anyway, cut to the chase .
Just my luck though as I am going to be on holiday on the dates of the summons .
I must admit to being both gutted & relieved at the same time as it was for between 7-10 days at the Coroners Court 😢

To everyone who gave me their thoughts on this , I received an email to say I was excused from service .
I am hoping to be recalled though .

But vampirequeen it’s only done for a short length of time say 2 years so no they wouldn’t become complacent better than being tried by some of the people you know don’t know their left to their right

Sago

My husband did it and found it fascinating.
He was quite concerned though that some of the jurors were not very bright, he had to explain an awful lot to them.
I would love to do it.

I have been called twice, once in one county and once in another. Both times were really boring and the cases I was called for were quite trivial.

I too was concerned about the lack of brightness of some of the jurors. One man thought we were all being stupid for discussing the case as "Even an idiot knows it is up to the judge."

My husband has done it too, only once, he was called for a murder and found it very upsetting and traumatic.

I was sorry when I got to the age of 75 and had never been called. I would have been quite interested. My only experience of Court was being a witness to a robbery in our neighbourhood. What I remember is the jury all looking intently at me when I spoke and having to be constantly reminded to address the jury and not the person who asked the question.

Bumface

Sago

My husband did it and found it fascinating.
He was quite concerned though that some of the jurors were not very bright, he had to explain an awful lot to them.
I would love to do it.

I have been called twice, once in one county and once in another. Both times were really boring and the cases I was called for were quite trivial.

I too was concerned about the lack of brightness of some of the jurors. One man thought we were all being stupid for discussing the case as "Even an idiot knows it is up to the judge."

My husband has done it too, only once, he was called for a murder and found it very upsetting and traumatic.

Must say I found it disturbing that two female jurors on my panel had made up their minds as to the guilt of the defendant, almost without hearing a single word of evidence.

The rest of us, however, heard quite enough to want to give him the benefit of the doubt, so it was a 10/2 verdict.

I did Jury Service many years ago, there was a lot of time waiting around so you definitely need a book/kindle. I was called and I was required for a couple of weeks. I'm glad I did it, I did find it interesting.

I would have loved to sit on a Jury. But I’ve never been called.😫

I had always fancied doing it until I was called, the case I was allocated was a child abuse case, we were called to the court room and told by the judge that the case was going to last 4/5 weeks and if you didn't think you could commit to that length of time you had to ask to be excused, I was my mother's carer and had made arrangements for 1 /2 weeks but no longer, I told them this and was excused ( thankfully) I haven't been called again and thankfully not been called again. Do they have an upper age limit now?

I assume the upper age limit is 75.