Jury Service - attending sentencing after release

Dj_Jestar · 17 Jun 2012 at 19:18

poker_999 said:
cant you get done for discussing the case before its been finalized in court? or have they all been convicted and its just the sentencing to do?

We returned our verdicts last week. The jury have been dismissed.

ilcp · 17 Jun 2012 at 19:24

I have been invited back for the verdict and they have said that we can sit in the jury box.

Collider · 17 Jun 2012 at 19:30

ilcp said:
I have been invited back for the verdict and they have said that we can sit in the jury box.

If you were on the jury wouldn't you have actually had to be there for the verdict?

ilcp · 17 Jun 2012 at 19:33

Collider said:
No, the amount of money paid on Jury service is standard, they won't match your salary if its more than that and your employer isn't obliged to pay you for the service unless its reflected in your contract.

in the leaflet I was given, it said the standard is £65 for the first 10 days and then double that if the case goes on after that. To me there wasn't a limit and that they would pay you per day for however long the case goes on for?

ilcp · 17 Jun 2012 at 19:36

Collider said:
If you were on the jury wouldn't you have actually had to be there for the verdict?

oops.. sorry, I meant sentencing...

Collider · 17 Jun 2012 at 19:37

Sorry the limit I was referring to was the amount per day not the length of time you can have it for.

Guess it depends on what you earn a day..if its more than the stated amount (there are some expenses as well) and your employer doesn't pay you when you are doing it, then you lose out financially.

Pawnless Endgame · 17 Jun 2012 at 20:38

For those who have done it, what sort of cases did you get, and how many weeks were you in court for? I'm in for a Crown court... hope I don't get anything too graphic.

P.S. It's ok to say what type of case you had only when it becomes common knowledge / in the media etc. You're not allowed to discuss cases while it's happening.

Ranger · 17 Jun 2012 at 20:42

I did jury service last year - only sat one case which lasted 3 days, (one case was dismissed for lack of evidence) rest of the time was waiting around in the jury area - very boring. We had proper lockers, so I took a laptop in with me. Well worth doing. I loved the deliberations, but you need to be strong, there were a couple of people who I think just went with the flow.

Ranger · 17 Jun 2012 at 20:46

Monserrat said:
For those who have done it, what sort of cases did you get, and how many weeks were you in court for? I'm in for a Crown court... hope I don't get anything too graphic.

P.S. It's ok to say what type of case you had only when it becomes common knowledge / in the media etc. You're not allowed to discuss cases while it's happening.

The case I sat on was assault and witness intimidation, 6 charges in all and we found him guilty on all 6.

Westyfield2 · 17 Jun 2012 at 20:47

Spenty said:
I've never understood jury service. Surely there are many people who get selected that are incapable of making these important decisions that could effect someone's life quite significantly.

Sadly you are correct

.

Dj_Jestar · 17 Jun 2012 at 20:58

As posted already, mine was a conspiracy to cheat the public revenue case - aka tax fraud. It turned out to be a carousel/missing trader fraud worth millions upon millions, and wasn't limited to just the UK - but of course we were only concerned with UK fraud. To make it more difficult, the charge was conspiracy which largely meant that the fraud itself was almost insignificant. In layman's: We were asked to decided if one or more of the defendants had agreed to commit fraud with at least one other person, not just if they actually did commit fraud.

We had some witness tampering and possibly jury tampering thrown into the mix too. Plenty of other attempts to pervert the course of justice as well.

We finished with 11 jurors, which meant if a verdict is to be returned it must be unanimous, or else it'd be a "no verdict". This meant there were some very heated and intense deliberations.

Most of us in the jury were overwhelmed with emotion as the verdicts were read.

Destination · 17 Jun 2012 at 21:01

Scougar said:
Isn't that illegal??

No, your employer doesnt have to pay you at all.
You get standard compo, you lose money if you actually earn well.

Jury service sucks.

Dj_Jestar · 17 Jun 2012 at 21:05

Hikari Kisugi said:
No, your employer doesnt have to pay you at all.
You get standard compo, you lose money if you actually earn well.

Jury service sucks.

No it doesn't. If you want to live in a society where man is tried by his peers and not some elite group of people, then Trial by Jury is the only way to do it.

It sucks that you don't get 100% compensation if your employer is too tight to have juror's insurance (like mine) but otherwise it is a necessary and very important social construct.

If we didn't include the idiots in the jury, it wouldn't be a fair representation of society, ergo - just unfair.

Tican · 17 Jun 2012 at 21:17

Collider said:
You can ask to be deferred once. You can also be excused if you can show its a critical period for the business, if you are its likely you will be called back later.

Dj_Jestar said:
You can make your case to the summoning people, but you can also (if asked to serve on a long case) make your case to the judge. Anyone who was self employed was excused in our case.

Important dates were honoured. Someone ran the marathon, so court did not sit on the Monday. Someone else needed to sit an exam on a different date, that too was honoured and another suffered a bereavement and so court did not sit for the remainder of that week.

Thanks guys, doesn't help that this is a second job so to speak, yet to be registered as a business. But it will be by the time we go live, so to speak.

I bet I get a bloody letter through the post tomorrow now

One · 17 Jun 2012 at 21:29

Tican said:
Thanks guys, doesn't help that this is a second job so to speak, yet to be registered as a business. But it will be by the time we go live, so to speak.

I bet I get a bloody letter through the post tomorrow now

You do realise some people never get called up to do jury service right?

Tican · 17 Jun 2012 at 21:34

desires said:
You do realise some people never get called up to do jury service right?

Yes I do. Just preparing just in case

One · 17 Jun 2012 at 21:36

Dj_Jestar said:
No it doesn't. If you want to live in a society where man is tried by his peers and not some elite group of people, then Trial by Jury is the only way to do it.

It sucks that you don't get 100% compensation if your employer is too tight to have juror's insurance (like mine) but otherwise it is a necessary and very important social construct.

If we didn't include the idiots in the jury, it wouldn't be a fair representation of society, ergo - just unfair.

In your opinion. I'd much rather there was some sort of minimum standard of education needed. I hate the thought of being wrongly convicted and my life being decided by a bunch of sun readers whose only experience of decision making is the xfactor.

Trials by jury are decided purely on evidence, we need to make sure the evidence is viewed by people that can actually understand it. This is even evidenced when the judge will sometimes urge the jury to make a particular decision.

Dj_Jestar · 17 Jun 2012 at 21:54

The judge never urges the jury to make a decision. The judge will sometimes instruct the jury to return a not guilty verdict if the case has collapsed, otherwise it is purely on the jury.

Have you done jury service?

rebel rebel · 17 Jun 2012 at 22:09

I sat on the jury for 3 cases over 2 weeks.

1. A mugging and assault. Guilty. It was funny because he was caught by a fat guy who sat on him, and he was yelling out all sorts of obscenities as he was being squashed. Which the witnesses had to read out in full.

2. A guy threatened a minicab driver with a knife. Guilty.

3. 2 guys had a fight, one guy came off worse than the other and pressed charges. Not guilty.

I really enjoyed the 2 weeks I spent there. It was very interesting and whilst I was dreading doing it, Im glad I did. One thing I found strange about it was we always went to the pub over the road for lunch, and so did most of the defendants and their families. :confused:

Its a very weird situation standing next to a guy at the bar one day, and the next we were responsible for him getting 3 years.

ilcp · 18 Jun 2012 at 06:46

Dj_Jestar said:
The judge never urges the jury to make a decision. The judge will sometimes instruct the jury to return a not guilty verdict if the case has collapsed, otherwise it is purely on the jury.

Have you done jury service?

That is correct. In my case, for one of the counts, the victim wrongly or not picked different person to the one on trial so the judge instructed us to return a not guilty verdict.