Jury Duty - Employer wants my court payments

Forums › Off topic › Jury Duty - Employer wants my court payments

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

2847 posts

Uber Geek

#3075132 11-May-2023 18:23

I did jury duty once. A young guy beat up his mother's ex-boyfriend. There was to be a separate trial for the ex-boyfriend beating up the son. Whole thing seemed like a waste of taxpayer money to me. We also weren't provided with a copy of the legislation. I considered requesting a copy of the Crimes Act at the date the offense was committed because I knew exactly where to look, but it was a multi-day trial so I could brush up on the legislation over night without it. I was quite disgusted that the jury was asked to consider a few points, not the word of the law in black and white. I said I would never do it again.

Handle9

11394 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3075138 11-May-2023 19:00

SirHumphreyAppleby:
I did jury duty once. A young guy beat up his mother's ex-boyfriend. There was to be a separate trial for the ex-boyfriend beating up the son. Whole thing seemed like a waste of taxpayer money to me. We also weren't provided with a copy of the legislation. I considered requesting a copy of the Crimes Act at the date the offense was committed because I knew exactly where to look, but it was a multi-day trial so I could brush up on the legislation over night without it. I was quite disgusted that the jury was asked to consider a few points, not the word of the law in black and white. I said I would never do it again.

You aren’t qualified to interpret the crimes act and the precedent setting rulings. One of the roles of the judge is to give you very simple questions that you need to answer after hearing the evidence. If you have juries making up their own versions of what the act means you end up in chaos.

A jury a meant to be a cross section of society working under the direction of the judge, not experts on legislation.

Bung

6488 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#3075139 11-May-2023 19:07

They'll provide a transcript of what was said. I recall being told the jury's job was to consider the evidence not to try to be prosecutor or defence.

quickymart

13963 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#3075245 11-May-2023 20:49

I had a manager several years ago who I was talking to about jury service I had been called to while working for him. He didn't like doing it himself, and told me his way out doing of it was just to say "I'm a racist b-----d". I dunno if that was effective or not though as I didn't want to turn down my civic duty - and I only ended up doing about two days of jury service in the end anyway.

Geektastic

17943 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3075248 11-May-2023 21:06

Never been asked to do it and never met anyone who has done it.

My father was almost 80 when he died and he never did it. My mother is 81 and has never done it. None of my three brothers have ever done it.

I wonder how they pick people.

Lolmil116

20 posts

Geek

#3075256 11-May-2023 21:59

I can only assume it is totally random as I have lived in NZ for 3.5 years (only as a permanent resident for the last 12 months) and have been selected. I was meant to be doing it this week but requested in was defferred until July which was accepted. FYI I am 44 and was never called to do jury service in the UK

mattwnz

20164 posts

Uber Geek

#3075259 11-May-2023 22:19

Sounds fair. But the bigger issue is why do they pay so low for jury service. Surely they should be paying the living wage. Lawyers and judges in court etc often get paid a massive hourly rate. People should be put in economic hardship due to doing jury duty. People have bills and mortgages to pay.

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

mattwnz

20164 posts

Uber Geek

#3075261 11-May-2023 22:22

Geektastic: Never been asked to do it and never met anyone who has done it.

My father was almost 80 when he died and he never did it. My mother is 81 and has never done it. None of my three brothers have ever done it.

I wonder how they pick people.

Pretty sure you have to be on the electrol roll. I have been called up a few times. But they appear to have an age limit when people can choose not to do it, and that limit is very low. Think it is only 65. So if noone is over 65 then it isn't exactly going to be full of peers if you are older and in court. The president for example is 80 and the King is 74.

neb

11294 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3075263 11-May-2023 22:35

Rikkitic:
My age shields me but I would turn up if required to do so. I would then make clear that I am strongly opposed to the jury system in principle, which would probably disqualify me from sitting on one. The European system of expert judges instead of random amateur nose-pickers is infinitely better in my opinion.

Changing that would mean amending a major aspect of the Magna Carta, which probably isn't going to happen... well, ever since most of English law is built on it (the Magna Carta, not just jury trial).

It would also remove jury nullification, which although rarely used today because no-one has heard of it was an important aspect of jury trials in the past, e.g. in getting rid of the death penalty for minor crimes and fighting slavery.

neb

11294 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3075266 11-May-2023 22:39

mattwnz:
But they appear to have an age limit when people can choose not to do it, and that limit is very low. Think it is only 65.

Mother Neb got called up, I think, in her 80s. She asked to be excused because it would have been quite stressful for her, and they had no problems with that.

neb

11294 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3075267 11-May-2023 22:44

Geektastic: I wonder how they pick people.

It's not picking people, it's failing to reject them. The process in the US is reasonably well documented, for example the defence will reject anyone who looks like they can think for themselves (higher university degrees are taken as a proxy for this [*]) because they're less likely to be swayed by emotional arguments from the defence.

[*] I'm not saying that A implies B, but that if you have A then it makes you more or less impossible to get onto a jury in the US.

Rikkitic

Awrrr
18663 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3075269 11-May-2023 22:50

neb:

Changing that would mean amending a major aspect of the Magna Carta, which probably isn't going to happen... well, ever since most of English law is built on it (the Magna Carta, not just jury trial). It would also remove jury nullification, which although rarely used today because no-one has heard of it was an important aspect of jury trials in the past, e.g. in getting rid of the death penalty for minor crimes and fighting slavery.

Some have the Magna Carta, some have Napoleon. Both systems have evolved. I still prefer professional jurists over unwashed masses when it comes to my guilt or innocence and the consequences thereof.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

networkn

Networkn
32354 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3075273 12-May-2023 00:07

Handle9:
paulgr:

Seems a little petty, but I guess employers require proof that employees in general are doing jury duty and not using it as an excuse to get some free time off.
An employee of my brother tried this on a couple of years ago.

Employers aren’t required to pay you while you are on jury duty but most do. It’s pretty reasonable that you don’t profit from jury duty.

Man, it took way too long for this to turn up in the thread. It should have been the first reply, set as the answer and topic locked.

loceff13

1065 posts

Uber Geek

#3075278 12-May-2023 00:41

The jury duty rates have not changed since 2004, the $31 today with inflation would be almost $50. They need to move for anyone to take it seriously.

If they are still fining 2/19000 people like they did years back(for $150 and $300) then I will take my chances every time.

frankv

5680 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3075326 12-May-2023 09:58

mattwnz:

But the bigger issue is why do they pay so low for jury service. Surely they should be paying the living wage.

Agree.

I'd add that if they had to pay (prospective) jurors more, they would waste less of their time. Admittedly, my last experience was better than earlier ones. But, nevertheless, a large number of people are told to arrive on Monday morning an hour before anything actually begins. Then you go through the whole business of balloting, and most of the people get sent home again. Then jury selection, and all but 12 are sent home.

I get that the balloting & selection processes have to be open and transparent. But we can draw Lotto balls on TV, and there's millions of dollars hanging on that. And often the defense and prosecution have decided beforehand on which jurors to challenge. Likewise, tell prospective jurors the names of the defendant and witnesses, so they can immediately exclude themselves if they knew any of those people. So, an online, live-streamed balloting of jurors the night before to get down from 100 to (say) 20 people to turn up at the courthouse at 10am sharp. Final selection and get the actual underway in an hour.

Saving 80*$31 = $2480 per jury apparently isn't enough to warrant changing the archaic system, but if it was $31/hr living wage, so 4 times as much, then maybe it would be changed.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5