Jury Duty and Court Cases Based on the United States Constitution, all citizens have the right to a “Trial by Jury,” which is a legal proceeding in which a jury makes a decision in order to direct the actions of a judge. A jury pool is randomly selected first, and then the potential jurors are notified. After, “Voir Dire,” or jury selection, occurs where twelve people are chosen for jury duty. The opinions of citizens differ greatly based on whether or not they believe that serving jury duty is a privilege, responsibility, burden, or even unnecessary. According to Kris, a neighbor of mine, the process of being selected as a juror is tedious, but she enjoys being a juror. She has only served in one case, but feels that as citizens it is …show more content…
Sean Lowe and the People of New York v. Keesshawn Nesbitt. In People v. Lowe, the court decided on January 13, 2015, that Lowe was guilty of endangering the welfare of a child under Penal Law § 260.10(1). On June 28, 2014, after a firefighter could not immediately revive the defendant on a public street while his two children in his care, one of the children being supervised by a stranger on the street and the other “missing” according to the defendant himself, it was finally established from an EMT technician called to the scene that Lowe was highly intoxicated under the influence of a controlled substance. Both the EMT technician and firefighter smelled a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emanating from the defendant; however, when they reported it the firefighter only mentioned that the defendant seemed under the influence of a controlled substance. For this reason, Lowe tried to fight the case by using that as a Misdemeanor Complaint but it failed to be converted into one, because the information of the eyewitnesses, using either terminology, was facially sufficient. Next in order, in People v. Nesbitt, the court decided on September 17, 2015, that the defendant was guilty after a deponent witnessed him enter an informants car without permission while carrying a backpack with an unlicensed imitation firearm/air pistol, pellets for an air pistol, and a bullet proof vest inside. The air pistol apparently looked, felt, and weighed the same as a real pistol with a propelling force of air and not orange rubber stop on the tip. The court decided that under Penal Law § 165.05 Nesbitt is criminalized due to unauthorized vehicle usage despite whether or not he did or intended to operate the vehicle, along with the Administrative Code of the City of New York § 10-131 (g) (1) that prohibits the possession of imitation firearms and the unlicensed possession of air pistols. I agree with the court’s
Serving on a jury is a civic duty and an American tradition. However, some people view jury duty as a chore or as an event that negatively interrupts their lives. Some independent studies have shown that even jury duty has a devastating effect on married life. Due to this and other extraneous situations, there are only a few people who actually want to serve on a jury. This may lead to efforts by potential jurors to, in some way get out of their duty in a jury. What we know of as the current jury duty system should be changed so citizens are not forced to serve in this capacity and can still be regarded as a responsible civilian. As per the status quo, a trial jury is a constitutional right, a jury of ones peers or equals. However,
A jury is a person who is un-qualified and not paid who is selected at random to participate in the court hearing. To be
For this essay I asked my Grandma Diane questions about jury duty. She has never served on a jury but she has been summonsed to questioning to possibly be on one. When she got the summons letter she wasn’t excited, “ I didn’t want to do it, because I didn’t feel that I [had] the right to judge anyone else,” and didn’t really want to go. She got asked questions like, “Could you be impartial? Could you be fair? If “this” happened would you say that the person is guilty? Are you related to the person/persons involved? Have you heard anything about the case?,” the attorneys asked these questions because they wanted to make sure they had a jury that would make an unbiased decision in the court case. My grandma said that, “It made [her] respect what
Jury selection beings with a summons being sent out to all eligible adults. These summons, in Canada, are sent out randomly in order to obtain representativeness amongst the jury members (Friedland, 1990). While this seems to be the best way of obtaining impartial jurors, it sometimes ends up creating other problems through-out the trial. The Crown and defense try to avoid problems, such as bias, impartiality, pre-trial publicity, and polarization, during jury
If during all of this process no agreement or deal has been made it goes to trial. “A trail is the proceeding during which the government and the defense present evidence to prove or disprove the charges” (Victim Assistance, 2013). If the defendant chooses to have a trial by jury than the jury selection process begins. “Twelve jurors are selected randomly from the jury pool, a list of potential jurors compiled from voter registration records of people living in the district” (Steps in the Federal Criminal Process, 2015). An ideal jury should consist of all types of people from different races and cultures (Steps in the Federal Criminal Process, 2015). Each attorney asks each potential jury member questions about their prejudices to help them decide whether or not they want them on the jury (Steps in the Federal Criminal Process, 2015). The judge is there to make sure that the attorneys are fair with their questions, and that the jury selection ends up fair and impartial.
In Canada, jurors are poorly paid and most of the times, jurors suffer from personal hardship. In Ontario, A juror gets virtually no payment for the first 10 days of work and $50/day for the next 39 days and $100 a day after that. What's more, the jurors are expected to cough up money for parking. Add to it, the price of gas, the daily trip to the courthouse can be really expensive for a long trial. ("Opinion | EDITORIAL: Jury duty is legalized theft", 2011)
The first phase of a criminal jury trial is focused on selecting specific jurors, which is accomplished through a process referred to as 'voir dire' which is a screening of potential jurors. In the criminal trial involving an offense categorized as a felony "12 jurors and up to six alternate jurors may be chosen." (3rd Judicial District, ) Voir dire of the jury involves the prosecuting and defense attorneys questioning the potential jurors and
The American jury system is used most commonly in court, but many question if the jury system should still be included in trials. The jury system should be kept in court trials because it will ensure justice is properly made, allow citizens to be involved in the court system, allow citizens to be heard by the government, and it reviews forgotten evidence shown in court. Some American citizens are beginning to doubt the “trial by jury” aspect of court systems, but the majority still supports this system. A jury is a group of people who decide the fate of the defendant. Juries play a large role in court systems and help decide the punishment of the accused.
Given that, if you are an attorney preparing a jury profile you will want to select jurors through the process of voir dire “A tool that the parties use for the purpose of revealing
Every second, there are millions of lawsuits taking places in the United States. There is a question that always needed to be asked: is it a fair trial? The answer depends on all kinds of variables, such as race, education, poverty, age, gender and so on. A jury selection always needs to consider and assess different variables. In addition, in a jury selection, the lawyers and the judge need to eliminate different bias in order to proceed with a fair trail. In the legal system, a jury selection is also referred as voir dire process, which originally translated to an oath taken by jurors to tell the truth. According to the Sixth Amendment, the Constitution provides the defendant in a criminal trial with the right to “ an impartial jury” (Benforado
The jury system in the United States of America plays an important role in our society. The jury system that we have seeks to benefit the public, it also seeks to give anyone accused of a crime the right to be judged by a group of their peers. To many Americans, the right to a trial by jury is seen as a glimmer of freedom and one which all citizens should continue to enjoy. This is backed by our Constitution and by each State’s Constitution and their Amendments, which “guarantees them the right to a trial by a jury of their peers.”(Jones, n.d.) . Consistently though, the jury system falls under attacks from critics who do not agree that this is the best option and seek to abolish, or at least limit that right.
Something I have learned from these films, and also my own experience from jury duty, is that the media plays a big role in impacting these jurors ability to sit as jurors in a case. The major differences that I have noticed
Jury duty is lampooned frequently in the popular culture as being a dreadfully boring waste of time and energy that keeps us all away from the more important things in life such as family, work, and getting drunk. Indeed, most of the time, juries see cases that are often dull and certain. Unfortunately, not all cases can be high profile, riveting murder cases that Nancy Grace can shrill on and on about for months on end. Perhaps worst of all, it is something that we are forced to do, and Americans tend to not like being forced to do things. However, there is no better way to grant impartiality to criminal procedures than the jury system. The jury system allows us, the average American, to have our say in the criminal justice process in perhaps the most important role: we can determine whether or not a person is guilty of a crime and we can do so uninhibited by our own personal biases, the biases of judges, and the biases of the federal government.
The word jury comes from the French word juror which means to swear an oath. A jury is a group of citizens chosen to hear evidence and make a decision in court. We have the jury because the United States constitution states that every citizen has the right to jury a case of criminal and civil matters. The word jury comes from the French word juror which means to swear an oath. A jury is a group of citizens chosen to hear evidence and make a decision in court. We have the jury because the United States constitution states that every citizen has the right to jury a case of criminal and civil matters. To be on a jury, you had to be a citizen. You had to be over 30 years of age and had to swear that you would be fair to both sides. You did get
The Constitution states “[i]n all criminal cases the defendant has the right to be tried by a jury of 12 whose verdict must be unanimous.” In the federal court system, a jury must be unanimous, whether the case is civil or criminal; while in the state