If You Do Jury Duty Will You Have to Do It Again
T wo years ago a reader contacted Guardian Money after being summoned for a fourth time to serve on a jury. Now he has been called up again – and wonders if five trips to the jury box is something of a record.
Robert Smith*, 64, says he has enjoyed his previous stints in court and sees it as his civic duty, which he is proud to undertake. But it has left him scratching his head as to why he is called so often.
Plenty of people go through their lives never being summoned; others are called repeatedly. Is selection really, as the government says, entirely random, or is something else at work here?
In 2015 there were 361,300 juror summons issued in England and Wales, but the number who actually sat on a jury was just 179,200. With the two nations having a total population of 57.8 million, it means the chances of serving are relatively slim. The Ministry of Justice declined to give figures on the likelihood of being summoned, but a BBC Scotland analysis found that the probability of being asked to serve is just 40% over a lifetime.
That makes Smith's five summons very rare. The MoJ says that if you are called within two years of the last time you served you have an automatic right to be excused. Smith's latest summons is almost exactly two years after his last.
Numerous theories abound on the internet as to why some people are called to serve and others not. Some believe they are blacklisted because they have an Irish heritage (dating back to IRA terrorism days), or that they were once a member of CND. Others believe a letter to the courts suggesting you are a "hanger and flogger" will get you off the hook. Some reckon they have been picked because they have been at the same address or same job for years on end and are a conservative, reliable type.
The reality is rather more dull. The Jury Central Summoning Bureau (JCSB) randomly chooses names from the electoral register. It is under no requirement to call people who are a representative cross-section of society – which is why, in theory, it is possible to have juries which are entirely male or female. According to the MoJ, no attempt is made to balance gender, age or ethnicity. It is as random as the prize number generator for premium bonds. Some people hold premium bonds all their life and win nothing, others win again and again.
Smith says those summoned should prize the experience. "I found it really interesting. Some days it can be immensely frustrating, other days rather boring, and sometimes it's very harrowing. I see it as a citizenship thing – that is, a duty for those called – and should be a source of pride. Sometimes it can make you doubt your fellow citizens, but equally I've been with 12 men and women good and true, and they have been an absolute pleasure to work with."
Smith acknowledges that he has been 23 years at the same address, but he adds that his first summons was at an earlier address in another London borough. It means he has seen the inside of more crown courts than most career criminals.
Ironically, before Smith became semi-retired he worked in HR, and would regularly write letters to the courts asking for an employee to be excused from jury service. "I worked in a big bank, and some staff were under huge pressure. Often it wasn't them but their managers who would insist that they could not spare the two weeks out of the office."
Back in the 1980s and 1990s such letters worked, but today the courts are less keen to excuse people. "They gradually got much tougher about it because everyone was doing it. You can understand why – I think the problem was that juries started to be largely made up of retired people and the unemployed."
Actually, the figures for excusals remain relatively high: of the 361,300 summons in 2015, 27% were excused – up one percentage point on the year earlier.
Some people are automatically excluded from a summons. You're not wanted if you're over 70 or under 18. Neither can you serve if you have been in prison in the past 10 years. But other than that, you'll need a "good reason" why you are unavailable for the next 12 months, otherwise you will simply be deferred and called again at a later date.
Grounds for excusal include:
You can't speak or understand English
You have responsibilities as a carer
Your excusal would cause "unusual hardship" for your business
You are a member of the armed forces and your absence would be prejudicial to the efficiency of the service
Most other excuses are treated as reasons to defer, not to avoid, jury service. It used to be the case that "officials" such as police officers, MPs and judges could gain automatic excusal, but those days are gone – police officers who know a particular court well are simply sent to be jurors at other courts outside their working area, while MPs are allowed to avoid jury service in their constituency but will be expected to attend elsewhere. You can even find yourself on a jury sitting next to a judge. They are only excused if they are known to parties involved in the trial. Other than that, they have to turn up, too.
Much more commonly, you can delay jury service but only once, and you have to say when you will be available over the next 12 months.
The main grounds for deferral are:
You have a holiday booked
You are having an operation
You are a teacher and it is exam time
You are a taking a temporary job (eg a university student during summer) that you'd lose if forced to attend court
The most common complaints about jury service come from young mothers and the self-employed. Mumsnet forums are alive with complaints from mothers with pre-school children. "The accompanying bumf says they pay £32.47 per day for any childcare costs incurred … round here that would just about pay for three hours' worth of babysitting," says one, while another says, "I just completed eight days of jury service (in Scotland) and, despite having three pre-schoolers, I was not excused."
The £32.47 is the fee paid by the courts as expenses to jurors who serve four hours or under, for 10 days or fewer. The figure rises to £64.95 for more than four hours a day, then goes up the longer the case lasts. The courts will also pay £5.71 a day for food and drink.
Many self-employed argue that £64.95 is hardly enough to cover their losses and, what's more, the person has to provide evidence of loss of earnings before the sum is paid out. Last year, research by Churchill Home Insurance found that one in 20 employers refused to pay their staff if they undertook jury service, while a third stopped after five days. There is no legal obligation for firms to pay employees while on jury service.
Boredom is perhaps a bigger issue for many who are called up. Much of the time a juror spends in crown court is in a room waiting to be called. The MoJ is trying to tackle this, saying its "juror utilisation rate" has rise by 12% since 2006 to around 71%. But that still means a lot of people spending a lot of time twiddling their thumbs.
Typically, jurors are required to be available for 10 days, but sometimes longer. The MoJ says: "The court will always call more people than may be needed to ensure they have enough people when the juries are being picked. Most jurors are called for approximately 10 working days. During this time you could sit on a number of juries covering a wide range of trials; however this cannot be guaranteed."
If you are called for a trial, 15 of you will be led into the court room, with 12 eventually selected. But don't expect an episode of The Good Wife, with jurors challenged by fancy lawyers. In Britain, the court clerk will select 12 out of the 15 potential jurors at random to sit on the jury. Only then will you find out if you are on a fascinating trial or something rather more dull. And don't ever think about skipping service – a juror in Leeds who failed to turn up at court, saying "I can't be bothered, it's really boring", was arrested for contempt of court, while another was fined £100 for filing her nails and reading a magazine while hearing a case. The judge called her behaviour "disgraceful".
* Robert Smith is not his real name
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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/aug/20/jury-service-repeated-summons
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