What Happens if You Get Jury Duty and Have Travel Plans
If you lot're an Australian citizen and you're enrolled to vote, there's a skilful chance that one 24-hour interval you'll open your mailbox to find a fancy letter requiring you to attend your local court for jury duty.
If you haven't the faintest clue how the legal arrangement works and your court noesis is express to the storylines of TV legal dramas, yous'll likely have a lot of questions.
For starters, what exactly does a juror practise? If you lot've got to piece of work, can you skip jury duty? What if you have family unit to await later or alive far away from the court?
The proficient news is nosotros've done the hard yards for you lot — and then here'due south what you need to know.
What do juries do? And why do nosotros have them?
Juries are a key office of our legal system. They're generally fabricated up of 12 people who are tasked with hearing testify presented in a trial and returning a verdict of guilty or non guilty.
Then why do we take juries? And why don't we permit judges decide everything?
The key reason is that juries assistance people trust the justice system. Without juries, trials would be decided by a unmarried judge (who might not be representative of the broader population) instead of a grouping of people representing a cross-department of guild.
Recollect virtually someone who is specially biased or prejudiced: if they were deciding on a case themselves, the effect could be very unlike than if they had to achieve agreement with 11 other people in a jury room.
Having a jury also forces lawyers to explicate things in terms an boilerplate person can understand, rather than a agglomeration of legal mumbo colossal.
After all, we need to empathise the law if we're going to avert breaking it, says Jacqui Horan, a jury researcher and associate professor at Monash University.
How can you become excused from jury duty?
Look, I get it. You saw the jury duty letter and thought, "How I am going to get out of this?"
We all take busy lives and jury duty tin can be a major inconvenience. But, like voting, information technology's an important borough duty that we shouldn't take for granted. (I'll get to this shortly.)
All that said, sometimes jury duty is going to be impractical or impossible, which is why courts permit people to be exempted or excused in certain circumstances.
Here's a short and abridged list of some of the reasons y'all might be excused, courtesy of David Tait, a professor of justice research at Western Sydney University.
- If yous are cocky-employed or run a small business that would exist afflicted by your absenteeism;
- If yous are a student or amateur;
- If you accept a health issue or live with a disability that would brand jury service difficult;
- If you aren't living in the land where you take been summoned to attend court, or if yous have transport difficulties (eastward.chiliad. y'all live very far from the court);
- Some professions may exempt you lot from serving on a jury. This normally covers criminal lawyers, law and other people that piece of work in the criminal justice system, just each jurisdiction is different.
For most people though, merely having to piece of work is not going to be a good plenty reason to avoid jury service.
For a case in point, consider the master fiscal officer who tried to dodge jury duty in Victoria because he had meetings to attend.
For his indiscretion, he was fined $ii,000 and ordered to do 80 hours of community service.
How are juries selected?
If you lot're chosen to courtroom, it's not a given that yous'll exist put on a jury immediately.
For ane, lawyers have an opportunity to veto potential jurors past using what'south chosen a "peremptory claiming".
The reasoning for these challenges tend to be based on niggling more than superstition or folklore, says Professor Horan.
In Victoria, for instance, teachers and nurses are often challenged considering of pervasive stereotypes that they have "strong views" or are overly sympathetic to victims.
In many cases, lawyers will claiming potential jurors simply considering of the mode they wait, Professor Horan adds.
If yous are excused, challenged or otherwise exempted, you lot might exist required to come dorsum to courtroom another fourth dimension.
What does jury duty pay?
Jurors are paid allowances past the court for their time (and sometimes travel), which can range from $xl per mean solar day to more than than $100 depending on the state.
In longer trials, jurors are typically paid more than to make upward for the inconvenience.
Your work may also pay you while you're on jury duty.
Under the National Employer Standards, all employers are required to tiptop their staff'southward jury pay to their normal wage for the first ten days of jury service, but this does non cover casual workers.
Some states like Victoria require employers to continue paying their staff at full pay. Some lucky employees (often public servants) will get full pay fifty-fifty when it isn't required by constabulary.
But, if you don't have admission to these generous perks, yous're a casual worker, or if you're assigned to a particularly long trial, in that location'south a existent chance you could be left worse off financially for serving on a jury.
How long practise people serve on juries?
Jurors typically serve on trials that take betwixt seven and 12 days, though more involved matters — such as those for alleged terrorists — can take months or fifty-fifty a year or more than, says Professor Tait.
Jurors are oftentimes asked most their availability in accelerate if they could be selected for a particularly long trial.
What happens in the court room?
In court, the role of the juror is to be a "fact finder", Professor Horan says. In a jury trial, jurors are asked to decide upon the key facts of the instance and return a verdict of guilty or not guilty. (In judge-only trials, the judge also takes on this responsibility.)
Consider someone on trial for allegedly driving a getaway auto in a robbery: the jurors have to decide whether the defendant intended to rob something, the extent of their involvement and whether they were interim in concert or lone, Professor Tait says.
The approximate's role in jury trials, by comparing, is to deal with questions of law, such as what evidence tin can be presented to the court.
Juries in the internet and social media age
When jurors are empanelled, they are usually given stern instructions not to talk to anyone nigh the instance or to look upward information online.
The reason is fairness, Professor Tait says. In a courtroom room, the defence lawyers have an opportunity to explicate or question any show that's presented to the jury.
When a juror is searching around online in their private time, they might be reading something mistaken or misleading with knowing it. The defence doesn't have an opportunity to point this out, which could lead to a miscarriage of justice.
Similarly, jurors are often warned to go on off social media. The fear is that jurors could become aware of data that wasn't heard in court, that they contact people involved in the trial, or that they use social media to discuss the trial with others.
Judges take this stuff very seriously, and have even dismissed jurors who have researched online or posted about their cases on social media.
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What'due south the experience similar?
While most people are initially apprehensive almost serving on a jury, those who accept gone through information technology often value the experience.
"What we accept learnt from surveying jurors is that although jurors are often initially nervous and hesitant … later they've been on a jury, they're far more inclined to exercise it once more because they really appreciate what an amazing experience it can be," Professor Horan says.
"You get to see what it'south like being a judge for a calendar week or two."
For some people though, jury duty can be against and fifty-fifty traumatic.
If you're serving on a sexual assault or murder trial, you are likely to encounter confronting bear witness. Jurors also experience pressure level to make the right decision, which can be difficult when prove is conflicting or confusing.
Sometimes, at that place are disagreements in the jury room. (In Australia, juries oftentimes have to come to unanimous verdict, though in some circumstances judges will yet have verdicts of juries with one dissenting vote.)
It's a lot to deal with, so it's no surprise that ane study establish that 70 per cent of Australian jurors found the feel stressful in some way. Today, many courts offer jurors counselling services to help manage this problem.
While it is not e'er going to be pleasant, jury duty can be a bang-up feel — and one that nosotros shouldn't necessarily shy away from.
"This is one of the most interesting experiences as a citizen you lot could possibly have," Professor Tait says.
"Yous volition meet people you would never meet otherwise and you will have really momentous decisions resting on your shoulders. It's not simply a duty, it'south an opportunity."
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