I have jury duty this week. Maybe. it looks like I will have to go in, but don’t know if I’ll get selected. But my aim is to try to get on, and if I can then probably do the Null-word without ever saying the Null-word. I do have a few questions for anyone who might know about this stuff. This is in the US.
First off, I have been on a jury before and it ended in a hung jury result and I do take credit for some praxis there even though it was a long time ago before I fully knew what that word meant. Anyway, several people who I told I was previously on a hung jury have told me that means I can’t be on a jury again, but I don’t know if they know what they’re talking about. Is it true? Am I disqualified? If so, do I even have to report that fact?
The trial I was a juror for last time was over 15 years ago, so there are some things I don’t remember well and other things that have probably changed since then. Like will it be on a questionnaire where they ask if I’ve been on a jury before and what the result was? I know they ask some questions vocally in person if you’re being considered for selection, so is it only then that they ask about history as a juror? I assume in either case, I’d be at risk of perjuring myself if I “forgot” and wrote/said “no” for that question? Or maybe they even like it when someone has been on a jury before, just not for a hung jury, and I could leave off that particular detail?
If my well hung history isn’t a deal breaker for whatever reason, what else should I know about so that I would be more likely to be selected? I’d guess a lot of it is context dependent.
This next question is a whole other topic really but I’ve been wondering about this site’s thoughts on it even before getting the summons. As an ML on a jury within a capitalist penal system, would you say there’s an obligation by principle to always nullify? It seems like edge cases must exist, even if it is playing into the bourgeois system. For example, a case where there is abuse of a child and it appears clearly evident that the defendant is guilty. I realize the system set to “rehabilitate” this person is not even “broken” but functions to punish the working class and facilitate legalized slavery, while benefiting and protecting the ruling class. It is still better to do what’s necessary to help prevent more abuse by this individual from occurring, and go for conviction in that very specific case. Right? Another kind of edge case might be one where every once in a while, very rarely maybe that blue wall cracked just a little, and the defendant is actually a cop on trial for doing usual cop shit, but did it too openly or something. In that kind of one in a million case the obligation is to do everything possible to convict the bastard, I’m sure.
I have jury duty this week. Maybe. it looks like I will have to go in, but don’t know if I’ll get selected. But my aim is to try to get on, and if I can then probably do the Null-word without ever saying the Null-word. I do have a few questions for anyone who might know about this stuff. This is in the US.
FFS don’t post this
The feds are monitoring this site and cross referencing it with all potential jurors in the US, and will notify the lawyers not to select me? Gotta be honest, I’m not too worried about that.
It is the right of every juror to judge a peer according to their conscience. I think that alone covers a lot of how you should approach jury duty even within a bourgeois framework
If they ask you something in the screening, you should treat it as though you are firmly obliged not to lie, though perhaps you can ask if such a question is legal.
They have their own loophole, which is that they can ask you (in so many words) if you intend to do nullification. If you say no and then they can prove that you did intend to, that’s a perjury charge or something against you, which is serious. You can try to be a gamer and say “nah, I just really can’t be sure beyond a reasonable doubt he’s guilty” but that’s playing with a loaded gun.
Yes, there are times where it is clearly the better option to convict. Don’t think of it as moral purity about participating in a capitalist system, it’s too late for that, think of it as what would be the better outcome for society. If some whitecollar criminal got a hundred million dollars defrauding senile senior citizens, it’s not praxis to let him off the hook.
Thank you, this is good information to know. They never asked me or anyone else being selected if there was intent to do nullification, not even in lawyer-speak, so I wasn’t expecting they would this time either. I figured if they’re at the point of asking you that, then they’ve already decided they’re not going to choose you to be on the jury.
As far as not treating it as a hard rule to always prevent conviction in all cases, I completely agree with everything you said. My question about that was not so much to ask what the “right” answer was, as I already firmly believe that there are cases where going by the rulebook and convicting someone is undeniably the right thing to do. The question was more a curiosity about the opinions of commenters here. I would hope most would be in agreement, but consensus around here on that sort of thing has surprised me before.
you say forgot rather than no or don’t remember or don’t think so or think so (in free form writing), but don’t lie and if you can’t imagine how to dodge - just tell truth, especially if you have witnesses in other people, who the fuck knows what they decide to do. like point blank question on hung jury - tell the truth.
you can type this into google and the google AI will say “no you’re not disqualified from jury duty” and if you’re worried the AI is wrong you can always tell them “look it’s what google AI said” (never call it gemini)
The question wasn’t just about the legality of being on a jury again after a hung a jury past but also about whether it would in practice ensure I wouldn’t be selected if I told the truth. If the lawyers approving or disapproving jurors during the selection process would immediately put me in the “no” category. I don’t trust “google AI” to give me the kind of insight I hoped someone here might have.
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