Jury duty and other legal stuff

[Aunty Em]

Well in almost 30 years I have never been called for jury service. I'm not sure on what grounds I could be exempted or postponed, but here in Colchester there is no Crown Court so more serious cases are tried in Chelmsford or Ipswich and you don't usually know what you will be asked to sit on.

 

[Jeslek]

Well in almost 30 years I have never been called for jury service. I'm not sure on what grounds I could be exempted or postponed, but here in Colchester there is no Crown Court so more serious cases are tried in Chelmsford or Ipswich and you don't usually know what you will be asked to sit on.

Pray tell, what is a Crown Court?

 

[Aunty Em]

Well in almost 30 years I have never been called for jury service. I'm not sure on what grounds I could be exempted or postponed, but here in Colchester there is no Crown Court so more serious cases are tried in Chelmsford or Ipswich and you don't usually know what you will be asked to sit on.

Pray tell, what is a Crown Court?

Where more serious cases both criminal e.g. murder, manslaughter, and civil e.g. corporate fraud, are sent to be tried. i.e. The Old Bailey in London. The accused can elect to be tried by jury. As opposed to a County Court, which deals with lesser criminal and civil cases.

The Crown Court

 

[HomeLAN]

I'vd been called once. In this county, you can be called for grand jury duty, or you can be called (more commonly) as part of that week's jury pool. The pool is for all trial juries, both criminal and civil, on the docket for that week. Worst case, you sit on your butt for 5 days, and never even get enpanelled, because there aren't enouggh cases on the docket. Best case, they already know there aren't enough and you get released immediately.

I actually sat on a jury in (of all things) a divorce case. They settled a day and a half into it.

The reason you can't talk about the case until after it's over is that they don;t want ANY communication leaking back to the defendant, his lawyer, or the prosecutor. This is referred to as "ex parte" communication (if I remember right), and it can void the whole freaking trial, as it then becomes AUTOMATIC grounds for appeal.

All in all, it's no big deal. If I get called again, I'll go again.