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Recently I was summoned for jury duty. I sat all day long in a room with several hundred people. Ultimately about half were called to be considered for juries. Then they sent us home. People just sat around in there all day long. An amazing variety of people, which is the point of a jury.
It
seemed to be that there must be something useful you could do with a cross-section of the population whom you had compelled to show up. I propose potential jurors could occupy their time answering opinion polls. Pollsters crave representative slices of the population, and in the jury pool they have one. Each juror could be paid a dollar for each poll filled out, and the city would get a dollar too - or whatever price the poll market would bear. If a potential juror did not want to fill out polls, fine. This would make money for the city and let the summoned folks do something productive.
And if you answered all the polls available you would get a little cup of frozen custard.
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A bunch of people who are pissed off about jury duty seem to be a highly questionable source of poll data. |
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/And if you answered all the polls available you would get a little cup of frozen custard./ |
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In lieu of, or addition to the monetary reward? |
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//A bunch of people who are pissed off about jury duty seem to be a highly questionable source of poll data// |
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If you look at it like that, it's easy to say that any group of people who can be arsed to fill out a poll for free is hardly a representative slice of society, no? It's like all the TV, and print media phone-in "polls". The only opinions recorded are those of people who can be arsed calling in. |
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The funny side of this is when a TV news article reports a poll, whereby a certian percentage of the poll-ers phoned in to say that they are "undecided" or "don't care" on the issue at hand. I love that there are people who will do that. |
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//something useful you could do// hmmm. |
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knit squares for blankets for the homeless, sew mailbags, break rocks? |
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I did jury service for about a month last
year - nobody there felt particularly pissed
off with having to be there. Most of us felt
quite privileged to be there. |
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There were some shady characters who
tried to explain to the judge that they can't
be there because they run their own
businesses, which turned out to be the
vague 'import and export' kind of
business. Hmm. |
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Now you're talking - Jury Choirs. I like it. As well as traditional choral works (e.g. Handel's "Messiah" if you're doing jury duty near Christmas time) jurors would practice singing the words "Guilty" and "Not guilty" in rousing four-part harmony for when the time comes to give a verdict. |
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Interesting niche for another occasion: music videos featuring singing jurors in the courtroom setting (call for a list, but over on Multiply, I suppose - do it over there). |
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Now, Jurymen, hear my advice
All kinds of vulgar prejudice
I pray you set aside,
I pray you set aside:
With stern judicial frame of mind,
From bias free of ev'ry kind,
This trial must be tried! |
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Silence in Court! Silence! |
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From bias free of ev'ry kind,
This trial must be tried... |
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//I did jury service for about a month last year - nobody there felt particularly pissed off with having to be there. Most of us felt quite privileged to be there.// Which planet was that on? |
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I like this. It's better than our stupid
"Neilson" Family, or whatever that is. |
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In the U.S., one's civic duty consists of spending a day or three waiting, followed by voir dire, and if one is truly unfortunate, having to give up ones day job and sit through days and days of indescribable absurdity watching lawyers accumulate small fortunes, for which one is paid $40 per day. |
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do you get to watch trials (while waiting) in the US? |
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here, you're just shoved in a room. |
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+ Excellent idea. Some other opinions:
1. Do you like being called for jury duty?
2. Are the workers at the courts friendly people?
3. How long have you been sitting here?
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[+] everybody likes custard |
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//In the U.S., one's civic duty consists of spending a day or three waiting, followed by voir dire, and if one is truly unfortunate, having to give up ones day job and sit through days and days of indescribable absurdity watching lawyers accumulate small fortunes, for which one is paid $40 per day.// |
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Come now nuke, the lavish travel stiped of fifty cents per mile, and the threat more than makes up for it all. Besides, you've forgotten the accomodating phone system, whereby your date to show up, and venue can be rapidly changed for your inconvenience. |
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I don't understand - that's entirely counter
to my experience: I was refunded the
whole of my tube fare each week. The
forms that stated where to turn up and
when were supplied and agreed about six
months in advance (the first time they
placed me in the middle of my semester,
so they started again and the following
summer with new dates on new forms,
also about six months in advance or so). |
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