12-21-2019, 05:07 AM
I have had a handful Kona requests & one Hilo. After doing the one jury pool service in Hilo, I would say "count your blessings"
they call 50 people for a pool. you serve one day or one jury (so you COULD be sworn into multiple pools, I guess)
Based on my experience, that is not likely! In the pool you are told a few things (scope of the trials & things) & sworn in. This was a hoohum neighor/neighbor type trial, so I thought "breeze the the jury selection" I could not have been more wrong! I was one of the latter juror numbers (dang alphabet) so I watched the questioning of each & every juror. mini trials for each! every juror seemed to be related to the 2 parties, or someone involved.
& during selection, the judge was repeatedly called out of court, sometimes for over an hour (remember we were now sworn, so we were stuck right there. ALL day, at 4:45 the jury had still not been picked & they asked us if we wanted to continue for another day or just finish this up, it should be less than an hour more, everyone agreed to finish it up. After 7pm the jury was still not selected & the judge called recess to the next week (you had to do the same jury selection thing of calling the night before to see if they would meet) This went on from April to mid June, the whole time I was a long term substitute for one of our long time ago Punaweb members, every Friday I would have to inform the school I may have to serve the following Monday, very Friday night I would have to call oi see in the jury selection was on the docket for Monday & find it was postponed yet another week. Finally, 2weeks after school got out we were informed that the parties decided to go into mediation, & they would call us if needed.
In August of that summer I got another call to jury service & I cold not answer the question "Have you served in a jury in the last year"as I had only been in the jury pool. I called the county court & was not able to get an answer on wether to check the box to that, though I was transferred to just about everyone in the courthouse. I finally just left it black & wrote in the dates I served in a "jury pool" with the court case.
I have yet to be requested to serve since, so there is that!
they call 50 people for a pool. you serve one day or one jury (so you COULD be sworn into multiple pools, I guess)
Based on my experience, that is not likely! In the pool you are told a few things (scope of the trials & things) & sworn in. This was a hoohum neighor/neighbor type trial, so I thought "breeze the the jury selection" I could not have been more wrong! I was one of the latter juror numbers (dang alphabet) so I watched the questioning of each & every juror. mini trials for each! every juror seemed to be related to the 2 parties, or someone involved.
& during selection, the judge was repeatedly called out of court, sometimes for over an hour (remember we were now sworn, so we were stuck right there. ALL day, at 4:45 the jury had still not been picked & they asked us if we wanted to continue for another day or just finish this up, it should be less than an hour more, everyone agreed to finish it up. After 7pm the jury was still not selected & the judge called recess to the next week (you had to do the same jury selection thing of calling the night before to see if they would meet) This went on from April to mid June, the whole time I was a long term substitute for one of our long time ago Punaweb members, every Friday I would have to inform the school I may have to serve the following Monday, very Friday night I would have to call oi see in the jury selection was on the docket for Monday & find it was postponed yet another week. Finally, 2weeks after school got out we were informed that the parties decided to go into mediation, & they would call us if needed.
In August of that summer I got another call to jury service & I cold not answer the question "Have you served in a jury in the last year"as I had only been in the jury pool. I called the county court & was not able to get an answer on wether to check the box to that, though I was transferred to just about everyone in the courthouse. I finally just left it black & wrote in the dates I served in a "jury pool" with the court case.
I have yet to be requested to serve since, so there is that!