About that “impartial jury” thing …
November 14th, 2007, 6:10 pm · Post a Comment · posted by Scott Shackford
The courts cast a pretty wide net to put together a jury for the upcoming lengthy Barstow Truck Parts embezzlement trial.
They managed to snag both myself and Jon Prince, who works in the Desert Dispatch advertising department.
I’ve actually reported one of the stories (more than a year ago) about the progression of the case, so there was no way I would ever be seated on that jury, but there’s no bubble to fill in on the jury form explaining as such, so I had to go through the process anyway today. Ultimately we were excused.
I understand from the newspaper’s history that being in the press doesn’t always mean people in the newsroom won’t have to serve on the jury. I was told that a general manager years ago did ultimately end up on a jury for a case. I imagine if the case involved were one that the Desert Dispatch was not covering, I might end up there in the jury. I don’t assume the accused in any of our crime stories are guilty, so being in the media isn’t necessarily a free pass out.
We have two other newsroom folks with pending jury service notices within a month. This seems to happen every fall — we all seem to get summoned for jury in a staggered group. I’ve gotten summons four of the five years I’ve lived here. This was the first time I actually had to go sit in for jury selection.
