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Comment by dragontamer | Hacker News Reader

I'm assuming it went like this:

"So this guy is guilty right?"

(10x other Jurors) "Agreed".

(That one "For Fairness" Juror) "I dunno, we're sending this guy to jail for an awfully long time. I think we need to think it over a bit longer."

"Fine, Lets get pizza".

* 4 hours later *

"Okay, we thought about it some more. He's guilty right?"

(11x other Jurors) Guilty.

-----------

At least, I'm amused by the thought of a "reverse 12 Angry Men" style setup, where everyone agrees upon the same premise (that a quick decision is a bad idea for everyone), but the additional time thinking changed nothing.

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"He is guilty and this pizza sucks. Not going to hang around for another. Let's get this done."

On a serious note - not sure how much you get compensated on Juries but in Australia it is not that much if you work as a software dev, so staying on a Jury for 8 weeks could mean even not being able to pay your mortgage for some (yes you should have savings but...). I am sure there is a financial incentive to finish these things quickly?

Most of the companies I've worked at will pay your normal salary while on jury duty (you're not allowed to get the jury duty pay but that's a pittance).

Is that by law or their own terms above what is needed by law. I get 2 weeks, then need to get the government allowance.

Own terms. In all states, companies are forbidden to fire you or retaliate against you for serving on a jury, but they generally aren't required to pay you.

Most large companies do, however.

Probably because it would literally taint the jury pool against the company for any wrongful termination suits ever brought against them.

I don’t think it’s as nefarious as that. It’s probably just that jury duty is rare enough and it would be controversial enough for them not to pay that they don’t bother dealing with it.

There's also a strong appeal to civic duty, both for those chosen for jury duty and for employers to pay them. And generally, at least where I am, people who try to weasel out of jury duty as well as companies who don't pay employees during jury duty are viewed in a bit of a dimmer light.

My guess is the reason most do is because of this: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-...

> When an exempt employee reports for a full workweek of jury duty and does no work for his or her organization, the employer is not required to pay the exempt worker for the week. However, _if the employee does any work for the organization, including checking and responding to work messages/emails, the employee is considered to have worked during the workweek and is entitled to a full week of pay._

So basically if you check your email then you are entitled to the full week anyhow. One mess up and an ensuing lawsuit would blow the whole average year's worth of jury duty savings from _not_ paying your juror-ing employees.

I bet that varies from state to state.

In my state, that's not required (and mine didn't). I don't know how common it is that your employer keeps paying you, but it's far from rare.

Do you stop receiving your salary when you are on jury duty or what?

Australia - TIL - maybe or maybe not, it varies per state: https://payroller.com.au/payroll-information/jury-duty

Yeah, I’ve been called up and the company I worked for had to write a letter because they couldn’t let me leave that long.

They need a better system. I can’t get a shorter trial. There’s no system to put you in a pool when you are freer.

The compensation often won't pay enough for the parking.

Larger companies will theoretically pay for a few days or whatever and will, in practice, pay for a bit more. But something like grand jury trials can go on for months and AFAIK there's no obligation for companies to cover you taking those months off while still being paid. In practice, in my personal experience, the government avoids pressing people into service who really don't want to do so for an extended period but they have no obligation to do so.

If the company you work for won't pay your salary while you're serving jury duty you should probably start looking for another job that treats you with respect.

From what I’ve heard it’s a great way out of jury duty. When the judge asks if there’s any reason you can’t serve, you can honestly tell him, “If I don’t work, I don’t get paid”.

During jury selection when I served (US state), one of the jurors tried to make that case. The judge asked if he would suffer any immediate or irreparable harm, such as the lights being turned off, being evicted, having your house or car repossessed, etc. Just having to miss payments wasn't sufficient.

He wasn't dismissed. The standard was pretty high.

> From what I’ve heard it’s a great way out of jury duty. When the judge asks if there’s any reason you can’t serve, you can honestly tell him, “If I don’t work, I don’t get paid”.

I've been in several panels from which jury selection was being done, and in the screening-for-hardships portion, those type of things were not, in and of themselves, hardships. Its rather the norm for private employers not to pay for jury duty, leaving you only with the rather minimal jury stipend.

It is not the hill I will die in for choosing a company to work for though. So many other factors. And you find out late in the process.

> and this pizza sucks

I feel like that's impossible to happen in Manhattan federal court. That city's pizza is so good.....

Then again, if you live there, maybe your Pizza standards are just higher?

Not sure how it is at the Federal level, but when I was called (but not selected, phew!) for local court it was insulting low. Like $50/day... and most of the parking near the courthouse is paid. Basically minimum wage equiv, which was like $8.25/hr then.

Edit: Just checked the state website... it's even worse than I remembered: "Trial jurors receive $12 for the first day of service and $20 for each day thereafter. If you serve more than five days, you will receive $40 per day."

I am Australian. When I was assigned Jury duty in 2016, my Company continued to pay me (I think this is a legal requirement if you are a full time employee), I showed my manager the letter from the court and I was instructed to enter a leave request via usual HR system we use - there was an option for Jury duty.

I was also paid by the court for attending jury duty (a physical check that arrived in the mail a few months later). It was not very much money (I think around $20 per day) - this money was supposed to cover things like Transport, parking fees and meals. In my case the trial was called off after 3 days so the check was for around $60.

Maybe if you are part time or on a contract it is different.

In the US they're not required to pay you :(

They are at least prevented from firing you though.

I think it is a requirement in some Australian states

> On a serious note - not sure how much you get compensated on Juries

I served on a jury a number of months back, and in my part of the US, they pay $10/day. They ask if you want to donate it to the fund that stocks and maintains the jury waiting area, and 90% of everybody says yes.

If you can show that you'll suffer an undue hardship (like, for instance, financial distress or having to care for a loved one), they'll dismiss you from service and mark you as having served.

When I was in university, the state I lived in paid $0.50 / mile for travel to jury, in addition to some trivial daily rate.

I was called for jury duty via email sent to my home when I was studying abroad for a semester, 4,500 miles away.

Unbeknownst to me, my parents requested an excuse from jury duty on my behalf because I was out of the country, which upset me, as I was hoping for the 9,000 * $0.50 in travel allowance...

Seemed like so much money at the time!

I had an experience a lot like this when serving on the jury for an assault case. Assistant DA was incompetent, we all agreed save one person, who declared ‘we’re not going to be one of those juries that deliberates for just five minutes’ and that ‘I wouldn’t want to run into either of them in a dark alley’ and, after I told everyone to quiet down because he was going to convince us the man was guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, ‘there’s no sense of justice.’

IDK seems like due diligence to me to prevent the hungry judge effect (or to forestall claims towards it being the cause for the sentence): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_judge_effect

The jury actually requested to read some of the evidence around an hour before they finished.

in high school we had a mock jury of sacco and vanzetti and everyone voted them guilty so they could leave early. i was the only one against it.

12 Hungry Men

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