Has anybody ever served Federal Jury Duty while living in The Villages?
 

This was in 2009 or so. It was a federal Jury up in Ocala that brought in people from a number of counties. I recall someone from Leesburg, Tavares, the Villages, Claremont , and Inverness. I got through to the panel of jurors. Maybe eight people but the Judge removed me for being me being very short with my answers. It would have taken a very long time to go into detail. The case was a Hispanic police officer who wanted to write his reports in Spanish as well as English. Or maybe just in Spanish. His fellow Claremont police officers harassed him so he sued the town and its police department. The judge and jury held for the police department but the judge scolded the police officers for their behavior. Lots of police seemed to be there when I was.

The pay was minimal as was the gas reimbursement. I did get paid for the day and for the drive there and back. The Jury Summons had us arriving around 8 or maybe 8:30 AM.


No phones nor computers were allowed in the building.


The case was covered by some newspapers.


I saw Avatar in some kind of special theater at the Hollywood 16 that day .


I do not recall if the judge asked if there were any people in the jury pool with law degrees. That usually gets me bumped off any jury as I am U of MN Law School Class of 1989.

$50/day.

67¢/mile.

No very profitable work.

I did not know how to explain to the judge, various attorneys, fellow jurors, potential jurors and the others in the Courtroom my 224 613 Project. Thus the short answers. Now I just e-mail the Clerk of the Court when I get Jury Summons. The Judge in Sonoma County California for that Jury Summons seemed to know who I was. This was back around 1994. I have received several Sumter County Jury Summons over the 20 years when have lived here in the Villages. With Pinellas County they asked if anyone had legal training or worked in the legal system while we were in a common room. Sent everyone who said yes by raising a hand --out the door!

The law library in the Pinellas County Criminal Court building or whatever the proper title is had next to nothing available for survivors/victims of crimes looking for information about their rights and responsibilities. I had been looking in libraries of all kinds since late February 1976 when I was hoping to find something to help my fellow Earl Wooster High School students deal with the 2-24-1976 murder investigation involving the death of Michelle Mitchell who was one of the daughters of our English teacher. Michelle was a nursing student who attended the University of Nevada, Reno . 2-24 is also my birthday. I found very little at the huge U of Minnesota Law Library unless you asked the reference librarian to help you find it . They finally got the right person in the 2-24-1976 killing of Michelle Mitchell in 2014 due to a DNA test on a cigarette butt in the person of Rodney Halbower. Halbower is a serial murderer and rapist.

613 is the number I had in a 17 week study on stress in the unemployed conducted by the University of California San Francisco Health Science Campus in late 1992-1993. I had told my interviewer a lot about my experiences pushing for better materials accessible in libraries for survivors/victims of crimes. She did say my ideas were worthwhile but waited until I was done with the study to say anything.


Now though there is a lot online.

Few years ago received a questionnaire, filled it out and never heard anything further.

Would have liked to serve but spending the day without my cell would have given me second thoughts

I do remember sitting between two very attractive women. It did upset me when the Judge challenged me as a Juror because I was giving very limited answers. And one of the other jurors was fascinating and it would have been very interesting to talk with him even if he probably could not have said much given the kind of workers he supervised.

Has anybody ever served Federal Jury Duty while living in The Villages?

No, but if "U.S. Marshall Alvarez" calls and tells you that you failed to appear for duty and there is a bench warrant out for your arrest, it's a scam.

It seems like there was another Villager up in Ocala on that jury. He/she might have been booted like me though as they were still not quite done when I left . They were almost done though. They did have a Jury Foreman.


I was in a pool of jurors down in Bushnell years ago. This was for Sumter County. The defendant finally was convinced to plead guilty for vehicular manslaughter after about three hours of talks between the attorneys. The judge said that the trial would have been about six weeks .


We never got to questions for the potential jurors. There were a number of Villagers there.


We did get paid for the trip there and back and for a half day.

Happy to be on a jury for a short period but for a 6 week trial would find more excuses not to serve than Carter has pills.

it's summer ... turn the thermostat to 80, and go have a good time on the Feds!

I usually get off for bring an RN !

Medical, court background, and a gun permit, a solid NO, you are excused, for 3 Federal cases.

And if I had been on that jury I would have just listened and said as little as possible. I probably would have been voting against the cop who wanted to write his reports in Spanish only if that was the case. If he could have done it in both languages more power to him. Access to the legal system is important.


I am referring to the 2009 Federal case in which the Claremont Hispanic police officer was writing his reports in Spanish and being harassed because of it. They might have been in English and Spanish.

If this was the 6 weeks long case would have told them the defendant was guilty and I believed in death penalty. Thought should get me off pretty quickly.

That was the Sumter County case. The judge was telling the people in the pool of prospective jurors that they probably would be going on a field trip to see the scene of the accident which had resulted in a death.

Can you imagine what would happen in a Courthouse if I start talking about seeing 224s and 613s in movies for the past 30 years or so and had thought it had something to do with my efforts to improve the odds for survivors/victims of crimes working from my own experiences in law, public, and academic libraries? I would soon be Baker acted. I had tried it out on some potential girlfriends and had not seen nor heard much from them after that.

That is a big reason why I e-mail the Sumter County Clerk of the Court and cross my fingers and why I was so terse in my answers in the Federal Court in Ocala in 2009. Off to the funny farm with yah!

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I did in Ohio, it was a 90 day commitment. We listened to 2 to 3 cases per day. I forget the pay but it barely covered lunch. We met 2nd and 4th Tuesday and Thursday every month. It was very interesting but for me it became too much, eventually I was let go. We had around 20 people on this jury.

Staying Safe Staying Safe


As an aside we lived across the street from the Grand Jury Foreman in Reno, Nevada in the 1970s. I think they were still there in 1984 when I helped my parents move to Scottsdale, Arizona.


What do I mean by all this empowerment of survivors/victims of crimes?

Things like the links above from the Washoe County Sheriff's Office in Northern Nevada made available in your home town Sheriff's Office. Check your home town Sheriff's office or any other LEO where you came from. That was and is what my 224 613 Project looks like. In February of 1976 I was looking for something to help my fellow Earl Wooster High School students deal with the 2-24-1976 murder investigation in libraries in Northern Nevada. Look how far they have come.

Our pooch Ashes was a very high strung Dalmatian who would run across the street whenever she could to go see the Grand Jury Foreman of Washoe County. She moved to Scottsdale, Arizona with my parents and then went to Rohnert Park in Sonoma County where various movie production trailers would sometimes be parked at the Red Lion Inn. This was across a green from our house. This was a few hundred feet away. Ashes was around quite some time . And so were the movie production trailers. I had helped my parents move from Scottsdale to Rohnert Park in the Summer of 1986 just before leaving to attend law school at the University of Minnesota.