Jury Duty’s Frustrations, Rewards

I finished my 10 days of jury duty downtown at about the same time as Molly Selvin did in Santa Monica (“Sentenced to 10 Days of Jury Duty,” July 15) and shared with her all of its boredom, inconvenience, discomfort and frustration. I swore to join my fellow Californians (94% in some counties, according to a story you recently ran) and toss future jury-service questionnaires.

Her story concluded on an inside page opposite the obituaries, where my eye was drawn to that of Jan Karski. Karski was a Polish Catholic resistance fighter who was recruited by the Jewish resistance to visit the Warsaw ghetto secretly and then to report what was happening to the Allied leaders in the West. He crossed Nazi borders several times and was captured twice. Among the atrocities he witnessed one stood out: “Peeking through the slats of a window blind, he saw Nazi soldiers shoot elderly Jews for sport.” No juries there. No trials. I think we complain too much.

ALAN CHARLES

West Los Angeles

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What Selvin’s article doesn’t say is that jury duty has become a modern equivalent of corvee labor. I’ve been called for jury duty seven of the last eight years here in Orange County, which is absolutely ridiculous. When I ask judges and the court clerk what they can do about this state of affairs, they just shrug and basically tell you, “Tough!” I’ve seen judges who have zero consideration for single mothers who can’t afford day care so that they can have the “honor” of being paid $5 a day to serve at the threat of being imprisoned.

And they wonder why people don’t show up? If I had to do it all over again, I would never have done so. Clearly, if you show up, you get put in a file called “suckers” and get summonses time and again. That has got to change.

GARY GARLAND

Yorba Linda

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In the new state standard for jury service (implemented here in Pasadena), it is next to impossible to be excused on the basis of self-employment. Although I was hardly forced out onto the streets because of my recent two-day jury service, it was still necessary for me as a self-employed, single owner of a business to completely shut down that business on those days. I think it totally unfair to have a class-based jury service where people like Selvin receive their regular pay from their employers while others such as myself lose money as jurors.

DAVID PRITCHARD

Pasadena

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I loved the letter suggesting that jurors should be compensated the amount of their current pay (July 16). Now, you must know that I love this country, but with all due respect, you Americans really are too much. You snivel incessantly over every nickel you must pay in taxes and behave as if your government is perpetrating a heinous crime against you--the very idea that it should tax you!

Yet you are so unhappy with your pay for serving on a jury, whether it is $5 a day, $15 or a king’s ransom. Just where do you think the money comes from to pay you as jurors?

IAN R. HEATH

Lake Forest