March 23, 2006
Ten Dollars A Day
That's what I'll be paid for serving on a
King County jury, starting this Monday. Oh, and they have sent me a bus pass, too, which I
will probably use. That's not exceptional compensation, especially considering the
neighborhood. I have to think that the compensation has some effect on the composition of the
jury pool. You would probably get a different mix if you paid jurors 25 dollars a day,
and I am sure you would get a different mix if you paid jurors 100 dollars a day.
So, here's what I have been wondering ever since I got the summons: Why 10 dollars? Is
that just a number that has survived from the past? Or is it 10 dollars because the county
hates to give money back to taxpayers? Or are there lawyers who prefer the
jurors you get with 10 dollars a day to those you would get with 100 dollars a day? Or is there
still another explanation?
(And, yes, I will be blogging about the experience. Within, of course, the limits of the
law.)
Posted by Jim Miller at March 23, 2006
02:21 PM | Email This
1. I just got done with jury duty, they even gipped me out of a days pay. I was the first preemptory challenge tossed off the island. I guess they don't like former firefighters with a college degree working in an engineering firm on civil commitment cases.
They have a nice WiFi connection in the jury pool room.
2. Not to worry Mr. Miller, the second they find out that you write for SP, they label you a neo-con and give you the boot (true or not). I also believe you are correct, they like what they get for ten bucks and a bus ride.
3. I just finished my jury duty too and in my county, the $10 hadn't been changed since 1959.
I seriously doubt that the money is a factor in anyone deciding to take their turn on the jury. We had a wide range of people, young & old, white & blue collar, male & female...not one said the money was a factor.
I was impressed with the process (I always have been) and agree with the judge who stated that there are two ways to uphold American ideals: voting and serving in the jury process.
Figures that the 'patriots' here at SP are only concerned about the money or actually sitting on the jury.
Maybe you'll learn something about America Jim... I certainly hope your cynicism doesn't get in the way of the experience.
4. Being a conservative doesn't necessarily get you dismissed. My responses to the voir dire (sp?) questions a couple of years ago made it pretty obvious that I was conservative, and I was chosen for an armed robbery case. It was a great experience though.
5. And I could have cared less about the $10 a day, but only because I was being paid for the time away from work. There were some people who were not, and they were excused.
So careers influence jury pools greatly. Small business owners, independent consultants, etc who don't get paid unless they are at work are most often not part of the selected jury members.
6. Applying real estate inflation rules of thumb to $10.00 in 1959, the current going rate should be around $125.00 per day!
Obviously the legal profession has an acute interest in keeping the status quo.
7. Fed up - not quite, there is one exception. The hourly rate for lawyers!
8. Dad, only you could come up with such a snide remark. Why pay anything? After all, with attorneys at $425/hour and judges making six figures a year and all the other stuff, no wonder there isn't money left to compensate those of us who are sole proprietors or employees in a trade and work for a middle class living.
Oh, I see, dad, we should all just donate our time, is that it? So, when I opt out of the jury pool, I am being unAmerican? Dad, some of us have to work to make a living; most of us aren't on welfare.
It just seems to me that the jury is being taken advantage of here. No wonder there are these outrageous awards or is that rewards?
9. I recently served on the U.S. District Court and you won't be able to blog anything about the trial until the verdict is in. You can't even discuss it with each other. You can probably discuss the traffic, the food at local restaurants, the courthouse security, or how many potential jurors were dismissed.
10. I'm amazed that you got selected. They don't like people with opinions.
But, I have to say that from the one time that I have served on a jury, I was impressed with my group. It was a mixture of people, from labor to executive, from gay to straight, from liberal to conservative. I don't get caught up too much in the "diversity" nonsense Seattle politicians reflexively get fixated on, but a jury should be a representation of citizens, not a group of like-minded people.
Having said that, I left hugely frustrated. Not with the other people on the jury, mind you, but with the options that were put before us in terms of verdicts. We ended up going by the letter of the law, which resulted in an 18 year old very religious boy being convicted of a felony for driving with foggy windows (he hit someone, who recovered from the injuries). Stupid, youthful mistake, but not like driving drunk and hitting someone.
What I left with was (1) the "letter of the law" in WA state is written by idiots and (2) the court system, at least on this case, had a systemic problem that results in bad an inflexible verdict options being put before juries. We all wanted this kid to learn a lesson, but he was hardly felony material.
I should also note that in this case, I was extremely relieved that the judge had some flexibility and options with regard to punishment. The kid did not serve prison time, which in my view would have been completely ridiculous, a waste of taxpayer money, and would have only resulted in a normally good kid being exposed to real criminals and probably coming out worse than he went in.
11. Ten dollars a day is state law and has been since 1959. The Board of Judicial Administration hopes to launch a pilot program this year in three courts to pay jurors minimum wage, which is currently $7.63 an hour.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/254958_jurors09.html
By my inflation calculator, $10 in 1959 is $63.87 today. For a eight-hour day, $7.63 an hour is $61.04. So, although it's a big boost, I think paying minimum wage is in line with the intent of the current law.
12. I got into a jury pool last summer for a real crime-spree trial. Despite being an engineer and engaging in an extensive back-and-forth with the defense attorney, I was selected and spent much of the next two weeks hearing the case - at $10 per diem.
I agree with 'rossi too' that it's a citizen's duty to vote and serve on juries, regardless of the wages. My employers were not happy, for honest economic reasons: they needed work done, and it was seriously delayed by the trial. But as with 'BananaLand', my fellow jurors were a wide assortment of practically-minded individuals, and rapidly agreed on a verdict despite their diversity.
And there are rewards - in two day's waiting for a call to join a jury pool, I had enough hours spacing out and killing time that two very interesting new tunes popped into my head from nowhere. These I wrote down, and expect to make vast fortunes in performing them, as soon as I can enlist a sufficiently scantily clad singer to front them.
Legal question: should my employer be given a cut of the royalties?
13. I never get picked, but would love to sit on a jury. It would be great to go through the process first hand.
Two wasted days in Seattle...
14. I guess the only real way to make some cash in King County is to ask the DeanRon machine for information, and sit back and watch the clock tic and dollars come in. Serves them right!
15. Before you go to the jury room, read up on the concept of "jury nulification." Then what ever happens don't speak up prior to the judges instructions.
16. sat on a jury; about 20 yrs ago; as a college kid; 1 month long civil property trial; what did i see? mostly good, honest people but everyone was obsessed with getting home on time and not doing this forever;
that REALLY scared me as a potential defendant; overall most were sensible folk; a few kooks--Mr Sleepy During Trial; Mr Irrelevant; Mr Likes Field Trips; guess it's a better system than any 3rd world country, but my tilt is most jurors care more about going home on time than dispensing justice to YOU; so---what's the answer to the system's problems?
17. Jury pools are not even paid minimum wage? How can juries have dignity if they are paid so little? Where is the health care? Where is the retirement? It's slavery, I tell you. Slavery.
18. Maybe if counties had to pay juries minimum wage, WA wouldn't have the highest minimum wage in the country.
Especially since it would cost the most populous counties (ie, King, Pierce, Snohomish) the most money, since they have the biggest case loads, and these are the folks who vote for such anti-free enterprise things as higher minimum wage.
19. Jury duty is one of the very few civil DUTIES we have as citizens. I have no patience for people who whine about having to take off a few days from work to do jury duty. You might get asked to serve on a jury how many times in your lifetime? Maybe once? That's soooo much of a sacrifice, let me get my violin out.
God forbid you end up in the defendant's seat with 6 or 12 of your whiney, disinterested, I've got better places to be, peers.
What next? You'll be expecting to be paid to go vote? Oh, wait...
20. Current job and previous job, when one goes to jury duty, you give your $10/day to the company, they pay your wages for the day.
Unfortunately, I got called to jury duty when I wasn't at either of these companies but, rather, temping (ie you don't work, you don't get paid) I was SO thankful to NOt get called onto a jury. I can't eat, pay rent, etc on $10/day.
21. Man LMK, what a scathing rebuke to any that would dare offer a complaint about the present system!
As My Boaz's Ruth notes, many employers compensate a person for the difference between the state's insulting $10 and their wage. But what of the self-employed? Oh yea, "You might get asked to serve on a jury how many times in your lifetime? Maybe once?" How about when it is four times? How about four times in two years? What do you say to the one's that get to pick up the difference between that $10 and the $40, $50, or $60 a day for daycare? How about when you're picked for a jury that gets sequestered?
Oh yea.....you've got your violin.
(I'm sure that you know what you can do with your violin)
22. There is a huge percentage of our population that literally live paycheck to paycheck for much if not all of their working life. Losing two weeks pay means certain things happen, and there is no way around it.
Things like you can't make that month's rent, and probably miss a credit card payment. If you have more than one credit card, missing one payment on any of them has a pretty good chance of bouncing them all up to 29% interest, which means you're very likely to be looking at bankruptcy within the year if you have some high balances you've been trying to pay off.
Maybe some people have jobs that pay their employees if they have jury duty for a couple weeks or more. I've never had an employer like that, but then I've never worked for government, like many of the condescending trolls that post here.
I have had alot of jobs in my younger years that will fire you if you miss more than a couple days for any reason, much less not show up for two weeks.
If you are a student, many academic classes grade on attendance. I lost a full grade just for missing one day in a class last year.
Sure, its everone's duty to show up for jury duty sometime, but if you are having hard financial times, the kind people live with all their lives, you just don't have 2 weeks to give.
The current system of $10 a day & a bus ticket guarantees that there will be jurors sitting there spending much more time wondering how they're going to pay their bills than paying attention to the evidence.
It's not every citizens duty to be deprived of supporting their family - do that, and you'll be the one paying when they fall through the cracks.
23. FWB: There will always be people at the top and always people at the bottom. Our gratitude should be that our bottom does not include an every day struggle for survival. You do have the power to start a taco stand and build it into an empire. I have been extremely broke. When I stopped blaming others for my sorry state and started taking charge of my life, I began my own success. Although I resent it greatly, other people are taking a chunk of my success to bank their own success.
24. Just got called to Grand Jury duty starting tomorrow. In NYC the going rate for jury duty is $40 per day. That said I will probably not get chosen. The minute they hear that I was a computer consultant for a bank and a couple of insurance companies, I get kicked off the jury. Shame that I have to take 3 days to get kicked off. In NYC you have to get kicked off 3 potential juries before you are officially dismissed. With luck I will be called for 3 the first day and then I can go home.
25. So, how many times can you be asked to serve in a lifetime? This will soon be my second time, although I was asked three times before I agreed to go again after the first time I had jury duty two years ago. They seem to ask the teachers at my elementary school fairly frequently. We are paid, anyway, minus our $10 compensation.
26. So, how many times can you be asked to serve in a lifetime? This will soon be my second time, although I was asked three times before I agreed to go again after the first time I had jury duty two years ago. They seem to ask the teachers at my elementary school fairly frequently. We are paid, anyway, minus our $10 compensation.