I was summoned to go for duty last month for a civil duty. I took the skytrain to pacific mall as transit is the cheapest and easiest mode of transportation to me.

Upon entering the courthouse, there was a line up forming by the sheriff's table. People were lining up to get their jury duty barcode scanned into the system. Once the paper is scanned, the sheriff returns the paper to you and have you sit in the area. There was a few lounge chairs, some stairway people sat on. There was about 80 people and not everybody get seats. Everybody was a stranger. Nobody spoke to each other. Not a fun atmosphere.

After more waiting, we were asked to enter a court room where the sheriff explained the civil trail to us and nature of the trial. The trial I was summoned to was an ICBC case, expected to last 19 business days. The sheriff told us what is to be expected throughout the day, selection process, lunch times, hours of court.

He told us that 8 people will be randomly selected. Once selected, we will line up in front of a microphone. Standing beside a microphone will be a sheriff and if you have any problems, hardships or whatever preventing you from serving, tell the sheriff when it is your turn. The judge will either accept your excuse or deny you. From there, the 2 lawyers will look at you and choose whether or not they want you to serve. The lawyer will say 'content' or 'challenge' and will not give you a reason if they say 'challenge'.

After that, he asked us to all go outside for washroom, make some phone calls, etc etc.

30 minutes passed and we were once again asked to enter that same courtroom again. Judge walked in, sat down. Explain the trial in more detail. Judge read out names of the defendant, plaintiff, and all the witnesses. If you know any of them, you cannot serve.

Sure enough, the court clerk then started calling up random people by jury # and name. She called out 8 at a time and one by one the people. If the person didnt mind serving or excuse was no good then they will sit in a big red chair behind the microphone. Most people who gave excuses were work related. If the judge thinks your excuse was valid, you will be dismissed and can go home (court will not pay you for the 1st day). This is the only time that I know of where you can pretend you are racist, sexist, etc but this is in front of 80+ people.

I was one of the lucky 72 people who got off of the trial so I dont know what happens beyond jury selection day. Bring a book, mp3 player, newspaper, NDS, or whatever. You will be bored.

my high school teacher had jury duty for 2 weeks. he said he was bored of out his mind.

I think the hours a day you serve may vary on different days but in the end they will pay you $20 a day. Or so my teacher told us.

After i got my first job, i read the employee manual and it said that if you get summoned for jury duty, the company will pay you your normal hourly wage for 8 hrs max per day minus the compensation you get from jury duty. But i guess you have to talk to your empoyer about this part if you are working right now.

are you an asian male? if so, the chances of you getting picked from the pool is less than average. my law prof mentioned that asian males are avoided due to cultural leanings towards harsher punishments.

so asian females dunt carry the same view? ...

just read through the selection in the post above. i do not want to go through that. anybody sent in a letter and was a student?:haha::(

So the defense lawyer will want to pick people they think would be most likely to side with their defendent, and the other side will do the same...

There are many other ways... my mom's been summoned numerous times, but everytime we say that her English is not very good, and she's never had to follow up on it.

that's your reward for voting

lol, yeah. I had heard a long time ago that names for potential jurors are harvested from the registered voters list.

Good info, :thumbsup:

false. i've never voted in my life. and i got chosen for jury

Do you file taxes? Then your probably registered to vote at least I think thats how it works. I could be wrong, wouldn't be the first time. :)

My law teacher told us when she went for the "interview" or what ever its called there was a woman who dressed up like a lunatic and talked really slow. I suggest you bring a cat with you with a bow on its head and when they question you, you tell them that Mr. Cuddles comes everywhere with you.

Registering with Elections Canada via your taxes is optional. You can select No on the tax return form if you don't want to, and if you do say yes, it's only valid for one year.

hmm, good to hear my information is possibly incorrect. threezero, do you check off the box that says "share info with Elections Canada" when you file your yearly taxes?

i will check with my aunt who files my taxes. make sure that doesn't get check next time around

shiet, my friend's sister met her eventual husband through jury duty. but probably not the same person.

......and then they lock you up. That would be epic.

I was summoned a few times for jury duty. Got out of all of them except the one time I really wanted to go. It happened to be the Robert Pickton case. I was so looking forward to being part of that. Unfortunatley, they phoned about two weeks prior to my date that the jury had been picked. I would have quit my job to be on that jury.

Why is that? So that you can potentially get a book deal afterwards? :D

I love gory details and like to reinact them.........:eek:

Very normal :)

If you're a business owner, you don't need to go.

i just go picked.........
i am a full time grad student, so i guess i can get out of this if i get a letter from my school?

in the back of the notice, it didn't say if i am a full time student i can get out of this.

nvm. just check the website and confirmed that full time students are exempt. :)

now i will just go bug my department secretary. haha
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I wrote a letter on behalf of my mom stating that she does not possess very good fluency in English. That seemed to work

Aren't Canadian jurors banned from doing stuff like that? Unlike the states, where you always see people like the OJ simpson jurors on 20/20 talking about their experience. Kind of a shame though. I'd actually want to read about the Pickton case, although from what I have read, the jurors will never (understandably) be the same after hearing all that gruesome stuff. Kinda sad :(