Quote:
Originally Posted by gatherer47
I became a Florida resident in 2012.Just got a questionaire in mail for federal district court in Ocala.Has anyone else here been through this process? Does this mean I'm likely to be called?How often are they in session? I've served on local juries back in Pa but never a federal jury.Just wondering how the whole system works.
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I did it a few years ago. I believe that I filled in the questionnaire around 2006 and did not get called until
Avatar was playing in the theaters in January 2010. They pull people from various counties --Lake, Sumter, and Marion-- for jury pools for this Federal jurisdiction for the Ocala Federal court. I got the Jury Summons around December of 2009.
The case was one that ran a few days and involved a police department in Clermont and an employee that felt he was discriminated against because he insisted on filling out some police reports in Spanish. He also claimed other police department officers teased him.
Some of the jury pool were dismissed because they had some connection to this police department, knew the lawyers, or some other such connection to the case.
Others were allowed to excuse themselves for whatever reasons the judge allowed. These were submitted in private via notes to the judge so I have no idea what they said.
http://www.uscourts.gov/FederalCourt...ficaitons.aspx
I believe if you over 70 you can be excused for jury service.
I was pulled from the jury pool and put on the panel for voir dire but the Judge must have had some problem with my answers to his questions so he dismissed a few of us before the lawyers had an opportunity to question us.
The judge does outline the case a little bit to the jury pool to discover any biases we might have had.
It sounded like it was a fairly busy docket but they schedule so that they can get a lot of prospective jurors for a string of cases that would come up.
Since I was up in Ocala, I went and saw
Avatar in 3D at the Regal Hollywood 16 after getting some lunch at the Paddock Mall.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film)
The jury sided with the Police Department against the Hispanic police officer who wanted to write some of his reports in Spanish.