Jury duty in France
Jul 3, 2009 9:25:16 GMT
Post by bjd on Jul 3, 2009 9:25:16 GMT
This is mostly for Kerouac, who is the only one likely to ever have to do this.
As I mentioned a while earlier, my name was drawn to be a juror at the Criminal Court. Jurors are chosen from the entire department, with some restrictions -- citizenship, over 23, not a cop or magistrate and a few other things.
Since my session was to last 4 weeks, I thought that was it, but in fact, there were 9 trials, each lasting 2 or 3 days. All of us whose names had been drawn in a preliminary round -- 40 main ones + 12 supplementary jurors) had to go each time and a jury would be picked for that day's trial. Since the Cour d'Assises is a criminal court whose sentencing can be over 10 years, the trials were 1 murder, 1 manslaughter, the rest mostly rape with quite a few dealing with minors.
The first day we were informed about how everything works, who does what, etc. Regular trials have 9 jurors, plus 2 extras in case, and 3 magistrates including the president of the court. Condemnation and sentencing is by majority vote (8 out of 12). The defence lawyer can recuse up to 5 jurors, the prosecutor, 4. I only actually attended one entire trial, since once the trial was postponed because the pathologist was sick; and I was recused 3 times. Since there were many rape trials, they didn't like having too many women in the jury.
Anyway, it was much more interesting and less gruesome than I had expected. And I wasn't at the most unpleasant trials. So much for watching Perry Mason when I was younger! It's really "the luck of the draw" -- one guy had his name drawn nearly every time; another was drawn once on the last day. The worst is to be drawn as an extra because you have to listen to it all but do not attend the deliberations.
As I mentioned a while earlier, my name was drawn to be a juror at the Criminal Court. Jurors are chosen from the entire department, with some restrictions -- citizenship, over 23, not a cop or magistrate and a few other things.
Since my session was to last 4 weeks, I thought that was it, but in fact, there were 9 trials, each lasting 2 or 3 days. All of us whose names had been drawn in a preliminary round -- 40 main ones + 12 supplementary jurors) had to go each time and a jury would be picked for that day's trial. Since the Cour d'Assises is a criminal court whose sentencing can be over 10 years, the trials were 1 murder, 1 manslaughter, the rest mostly rape with quite a few dealing with minors.
The first day we were informed about how everything works, who does what, etc. Regular trials have 9 jurors, plus 2 extras in case, and 3 magistrates including the president of the court. Condemnation and sentencing is by majority vote (8 out of 12). The defence lawyer can recuse up to 5 jurors, the prosecutor, 4. I only actually attended one entire trial, since once the trial was postponed because the pathologist was sick; and I was recused 3 times. Since there were many rape trials, they didn't like having too many women in the jury.
Anyway, it was much more interesting and less gruesome than I had expected. And I wasn't at the most unpleasant trials. So much for watching Perry Mason when I was younger! It's really "the luck of the draw" -- one guy had his name drawn nearly every time; another was drawn once on the last day. The worst is to be drawn as an extra because you have to listen to it all but do not attend the deliberations.