A Vermont judge sent his sheriff to the mall to round up a jury that could fairly try a child molester.
They stopped passers-by and asked if they were residents of Caledonia County; a “yes” answer won a summons to appear at the courthouse for jury duty immediately, right now, this minute. They rounded up 45 people that way in all, to join the 34 already at the courthouse.
Most people apparently did not mind being summoned for surprise jury service. According to the sheriff, “99.9 percent were just excellent” about being summoned on a sidewalk and ordered to report to the courthouse immediately.” Deputies were also dispatched to the local post office and supermarket.
The defense attorneys were less than thrilled with the idea of sidewalk jury.
Defense attorney Sleigh filed a motion to quash the impromptu jury pool, saying the proper way to proceed would be to simply postpone the jury draw and then draw from an all new jury pool during the next round of jury draws. Sleigh was not sure the new jurors were unbiased and he had questions regarding the method used by deputies to pick jurors. He also questioned whether picking jurors in front of the St. Johnsbury post office could provide geographic representation.Eaton noted the Charron case is 574 days old and is one of the oldest cases on the District Court docket. He rejected Sleigh’s objections and told the parties the jury draw would begin.
Dredging malls for juries is a surprisingly common tactic for judges in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. Next time you see a sheriff in the mall, walk the other way unless you want an impromptu civics lesson.
Sheriff Rounds Up Jurors [The Caledonia Record via The Lede]
More From Consumerist
-
Did A Retailer Make You Buy Accessories With Your iPhone 5?
-
Report: Sears Is Failing Because It Spends Next-To-Nothing To Maintain Stores
-
Woman May Have Scored Renoir Painting For $60 In Lucky Flea Market Find
-
How To Save Money By Not Using Your Health Insurance
-
JCPenney Already Done Apologizing, Moves On To Celebrating Customers’ Return
Sounds pretty police state-ish to me. Now I’m supposed to avoid the cops for fear of being snatched up for jury duty?
@othium: Bravo!
And, yeah, I too have problems with the method, over the concern of it being random enough. Slack-jawed mallsters aren’t my ideal for “peers”.
Although, they could have raided the local Wal-Mart… (shudder)
@Posthaus:
Because EVERYONE works monday-friday, right?
I’m curious what the hourly wage a juror makes compared to an attorney or a judge. If court costs and attorney fees run into the tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars, then there is obviously plenty of money to go around and it should be our civic duty to take care of jurors to prevent them from falling into financial hardship. If a high-profile attorney making $800K a year has to forego his country club membership for juror wages, so be it.
I think the most annoying part to me is if this becomes a common occurrence. Not for the potential jurors, but for the shop owners. If their patrons get pilfered on a regular basis, I imagine they could be very frustrated. After all, it is lost business.
@timmus: When I was summoned, it was something along the lines of “No payment first day, $40/day per day afterward”, assuming you were selected. Of course, this didn’t matter if your employer counted it as “paid leave”.
$40/day isn’t much.
I believe your average wally world shopper couldn’t even spell “Jury duty.”
“I buh-leave that’s a Pauly Shore movie. That boy’s some powerful funny.
I’ve found that most people hate the idea of jury duty, taking a day off of work, and general life interruptions, but once they are involved, they really enjoy it. I pity those who will never experience it, it can be an eye opening experience.
@TechnoDestructo:
No, some of us work Monday through Saturday. Other work all of the time, or just at any time. It’s all the same..but then I’ll never probably be part of a jury pool shanghai from the mall either.
And the law upheld by the ‘Supreme’ Court was “a state law requiring people stopped in suspicious circumstances to identify themselves on the request of a police officer.”
What stretch of the imagination would make walking through the mall or coming out of the grocery store ‘suspicious circumstances’ ???
I was suspicious that this individual didn’t want to serve on jury duty?
@ianmac47: Jury duty is not compulsory. If you don’t wish to vote, you can opt out.
The only time I’ve ever been summoned was when I was away at college, and obviously unable to meet my obligation. That was probably ten years ago, and it’s never happened since, despite the fact that I’ve lived in two different states since then.
@nequam: bravo!
i may not be fond of having my day tied up & unpaid/underpaid for it, but rather that than have no jury system at all
not that the current system doesn’t need a tweak or 2 to improve it – cover the jurists wage & quit letting the attorneys cherry-pick the pool half to death
@CumaeanSibyl: Actually that’s not true. At least in Illinois. I guess it depends on your state. The State of Illinois used to take its jury pool from the list of registered voters. Then they had a problem … the list of registered voters dwindled, along with the jury pools.
Their solution? They now take their jury pool from the DMV. If you have a license to drive, you can get called for jury duty. Whether you vote or not.
@tozmervo:
“A Vermont judge sent his sheriff to the mall to round up a jury that could fairly try a SUPPOSED child molester.”
Actually it should read:
“A Vermont judge ORDERED DEPUTY SHERIFFS to the mall to round up a jury that could fairly try an ALLEGED child molester.”
On a personal note, I do not mind serving on a Jury. My employer pays me my full pay for up to 3 days of jury duty. Anything after that though and I am screwed. So, if it will only take a day or so, I am more than happy to perform jury duty. If it is longer, e.g. O.J. trial, then I would have to ask to be excused because I would not be able to pay my bills.
@cwlodarczyk: It is a civic duty, yes. But essentially being kidnapped to hear a case is ridiculous. I wouldn’t have gone.
@freshwater: I’m with Othium. I’d have NO problem voting with my conscience in a trial. For example, I’d NEVER vote in favor of the RIAA or MPAA in ANY case.
@CaptainSemantics: And then you’d get thrown in jail and/or cited for contempt of court. As far as I know it’s illegal for an employer to punish you for jury duty, and many places have to pay you anyway (I know I would be paid if summoned).
Why do so many people want to get out of doing their civic duty? If you’re a citizen and live in a given place being available for jury duty is part of the debt to society you all must pay.
Yes, I would serve; I doubt I’d be on an actual jury due to a hearing impairment unless the court could arrange to place a monitor with an ongoing transcript of everything said in front of me, but if the court would do that, I would certainly serve.
I’ve been in a courtroom once (divorce hearing) and the judge was very gracious and helpful and understanding, so I can’t see why it would be a problem…
I wouldn’t be happy if they approached me that way. If I’m out and about, I’m obviously busy.
At least with a normal summons you have time to plan around it.
@sven.kirk: Working families now have a lot if different schedules. 9 to 5 job is often is unavailable dream. So they shop when they have time.
@Buran: If you own your own small business? What do you do? I’ve met someone who lost EVERYTHING because he had to do jury duties for months.
The business just went downhill.
Yes it is. Unfortunately, a judge needs to rule it so, hence it doesn’t happen.
That’s why Judges have free reign. Until they upset 51% of their colleagues they really don’t need to care.
Hence my rule: always guilty. Wasting my time = guilty. Done deal. Don’t like it? Well it’s my opinion. If the court asks, I’ll be honest about it.
I wonder if the store owners got any compensation for the government stealing their patrons. If I were a store owner and they were just taking my customers from in front of my door all day, I’d expect some compensation.
Our jury system works great! Just ask O.J. what he thinks about it if you need any proof.
@forgottenpassword: That only happens if you’re not a citizen. Remember, service guarantees citizenship!
@Posthaus: yes, I totally agree. It had to have been during the working week, and during the day. The reason 99.9% weren’t pissed off was because this was the most exciting thing that had happened to them all week, perhaps all year. F$#@ ‘em if they’re shopping when they could be working or out volunteering. I bet most were democrats. They’re frequently such perfect hypocrites.
@ironchef: It’s worse. Mommy may have gone to the mall before picking little Timmy from school. Now mommy is at the courthouse,, and who’s picking Timmy up?
Be careful about what you suggest, this just might be the “cherry on top” that Best Buy has been searching for in their “customer experience” program.
I’m amused that there are 3,000+ soldiers that have died in Iraq so far (let alone all our slain veterans) to defend a system that, amongst other things, provides being judged by our peers.
And these supposed patriots are whining because it’s inconvenient.
Aww…
@chouchou: Then you be honest about it to the court. If that much really is at stake, tell the truth. However, sounds like your friend didn’t have a backup plan in place… oops.
@banmojo: I hope you’re kidding.
I can’t understand why we don’t have some sort of program that would allow people to sign up for jury duty. Let us pick days that would work for us. I also know some retired people who wouldn’t mind doing some extra days in the courtroom besides their once a year duty.
First of all, people need to learn about the system.
A pool of people get selected. Those people go to the court, where the lawyers of both camps (in this case defense and DA) ask people questions. They will choose a jury based on those questions. Once the jury is selected a trial date is set. The members of the jury can plan around that.
It continues to amaze me that people moan and groan when a “alleged” criminal gets off, and want to raise hell because of this, but when they receive notice to serve on a jury, its just to “inconvenient”
It sounds to me like those people would prefer that we should abolish the trial system and just send people straight to jail.
The sad part is that this country was built on the blood of those that fought to give us these rights, and the lazy American public whines when they are asked to help bring justice to this country.
I hope that the people complaining and whining about jury duty, will have their lives are in the hands of people who are pissed to “waste” their time by serving as a member of a jury.
@freshwater: We change laws in this country with 4 boxes. The Soap box, the Ballot box, the Jury box, and when all that fails, the Ammo box. Voting not guilty when someone is charged with a law you think is wrong is the right thing to do. It is one of the checks and balances of our government.
Our Second President, John Adams said: “It is not only [the juror's] right, but his duty…to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.”
The First Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay wrote: “It is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that courts are the best judges of law. But still both objects are within your power of decision… you [juries] have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy.”
@ryan0rz:
@dafountain:
Yeah, I can just see it now. It becomes the norm in society …. where people RUN when seeing cops … saying “RUN! Its the Jury patrol!”
@goodkitty:
lol! great movie reference!
Imagine this getting much more pervasive in the future. Imagine cops coming to your home, your place of work, pulling you over on the roads/highways etc. etc. to get juryroom conscripts.
@doctor_cos:
Heck… it doesnt take much thes days to be considered “suspicious” by the police. For example… being the only white guy in a black neighborhood (or vice versa) is considered suspicious by the police these days. I cant tell you how many times I have been stopped solely for being out after dark (I work nights).
Cops are pros at this.
I’m just shocked there’s a mall in Caledonia County at all. Must be a recent development. I was last there in 97.
For those of you ranting against Jury Nullification ( voting your conscious ):
Prohibition was finally killed by Jury Nullification. The Department of the Treasury asked Congress to repeal Prohibition for exactly one reason … every last Prohibition trial ended in a not guilty or a hung jury mistrial due to Jury Nullification.
Every last one over the entire period of prohibition.
@kbarrett:
Prove it, cause I’m not buying that.
@bohemian:
It’s actually: “Ich spreche nicht Englisch.” Yay European girlfriends!
@etinterrapax:
11 years ago is really recent.
@freshwater: Actually you as a citizen have your legal right to nullify a law you feel (and rest of the jury needs to agree) under “jury nullification”) the court system does it best to cover up this fact from jurors.
Personally if this happened to me I’d be inclined to just side with the defendant no matter what. However for what the defendant is actually accused of in this case I’d give a serious interpretation, but for the majority of other cases if i was pulled off the street for a jury duty, if i was selected it’d be a godsend for the defendant.
@forgottenpassword:
Lying to a cop isn’t a crime. You aren’t being investigated nor are you under oath.
Cops are just people.
@Hambriq:
Google is your friend.
[findarticles.com]
North Carolina has a terrible time seating a jury. When I was in law school, THREE law professors got seated on one murder trial. They just can’t get anybody to show up.
@Hambriq:
From the previous link:
“A classic example of jury nullification in action is the role it played in ending Prohibition. As more and more juries refused to convict people who had clearly violated Prohibition laws, prosecutors were forced to stop handling these cases, thereby opening the door for the repeal of Prohibition.”
JUST SAY NO!
@Jaysyn:
Thank you, Captain Obvious. Now, let me requote KBarrett with added emphasis so you can see what I am taking issue with:
Really? Every last trial? Funny, when I read through your hastily-Googled search results, I didn’t see any mention of that.
Jury nullification just allows you to bail out of jury duty as most DA’s do not want the people’s input to mess up their case…
I quickly read through the comments. Does anyone know of a website that shows how a state selects jurors? Specifically voter registration or driver’s license.
Jury duty is a joke. I feel bad for the defendants in cases because most people I’ve seen picked for jury duty will just as well come up with a guilty verdict so they don’t have to sit through several days of being sequestered. I’ve been called for jury duty several times and each time almost every person tries to get out of doing it. At least the one time I needed to get out of serving I had a good reason, I was in the middle of exam week in college but the judge still wouldn’t excuse me even though they let everyone else go that just said they hated black people. Lame.