Full disclosure for my question: I was served a subpoena to serve as a witness for a criminal trial yesterday. This is related to an event where I did call police when I saw one guy actively beating another and then worked to assure the victim was getting the needed medical attention and to answer law enforcement’s questions since I made the call.
A few months ago, I was in the jury pool (not selected) for a child pornography criminal case.
With the subpoena, I’m obligated to drop everything (see note below) and appear at court. With a summons for jury duty, I at least have the option to request a deferral with a reasonable expectation to have it granted (which was the case mentioned above; I was in the selection process during that deferred time frame).
As for the served subpoena, I can let the prosecutor know of my situation and he might ask for a continuance; but that decision will usually depend on opposing counsel and the judge to grant (rather than the county clerk).
Ah, the inability to reschedule would be a hassle if it, say, interferes with vacation plans.
I think it would be kind of icky to serve on a child pornography case if you had to determine if content constituted pornography. If you only had to determine if the defendant actually viewed or created material, but no one was disputing that the material was pornographic in nature, it would be less horrible (at least if you didn’t yourself have to view the material or hear graphic descriptions of it).
I don’t know if juries are ever the ones making the porn / not porn call. You’d think that they might be trying to show the content to as few people as possible, but I have no idea how it works.
I’m pretty sure that this was going to be a key part of the defendant’s argument since his questioning (note that the defendant opted to defend themselves rather than take a public defender) center a great deal to find “creative types”.
I have a small block of business where the reserve last month was 4,242 and this month was again 4,242 even though many of the underlying policies’ reserves did change. Coincidences like this are why I get out of bed in the morning.
Wife bought a Stanley cup with a picture of a Boston terrier on it. My daughter and her husband have a Boston terrier that my wife just adores, hence the cup purchase.
the Law of Large Numbers does not owe you anything. LLN =/= Santa Claus
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