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I was just called for a 6 month jury duty. Not for the first time. As I am self employed and travel out of state often, I just state the facts on the jury information sheet. So far they have "postponed" my jury duty. Crazy stuff. 6 months is just beyond comprehension. 2 weeks is plenty.
No matter which state you live in...federal grand jury duty is 18 months! Wowzer, too long. I got called up when I lived in Arizona and it was HORRIBLE. Don't let jury duty concerns keep you from the beautiful state of New Mexico!
I'm in Lincoln County and have just been called. It's 6 months.
Apparently, if you need some time off for vacation, you tell the judge in writing and they will excuse you for the time on vacation.
If someone is employed, a caregiver, handicapped or sick, the judge needs to know that in writing.
I've been called for district court. My husband was called for magistrate court last year for six months and never had to go serve on the jury. They give a number to call every Friday night with a message telling to show up to the courthouse on a certain date or not.
I was recently on jury duty for the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court for 2 weeks. It is supposed to be the busiest court in NM with 19 judges covering 6-8K cases each per year. There were more than 80 people on jury duty with a second group running concurrently. So each group was required to show up 2 days per week (no jury duty on Friday). Generally we stayed around the jury room until lunch and then got dismissed (by that time they had heard from all the judges and whether a jury was needed). There were old magazines to read but we could not bring in a cell phone or any device with a camera (although WiFi was available).
There was only one case requiring a jury during that time and they chose about 25 people to stay for interviews with the attorneys - I was not chosen. Apparently attorneys will do everything in their power to avoid having a jury trial! It seemed like a waste of taxpayer money to have so many people show up when not needed - not to mention your time and any lost wages. I was being paid by my government employer but had to stay late at work a couple to times to complete my real work.
A co-worker lives in Valencia county. She was on grand jury duty for 6 months. They met once a week and went over cases to determine if there was sufficient evidence. I would not mind doing something like that - it sounds interesting. Just don't want to have to sit through an actual trial. Another co-worker in Bernalillo county was recently on jury duty for the state court but was on several juries.
I was on call for 2 months of federal jury duty in Albuquerque. I sat on one trial for 4 or 5 days. That was it. I got excused for part of the term for family reasons.
So here is why the system is broken, still. This is for the Sandoval County as I live in Rio Rancho, NM.
I do not care what some of you say about the great experience you may have encountered, I find it hard to believe that wasting your time to show up to jury selection 100 miles away just to find out you are not chosen is a good time. I have better things to do.
Here is how mine is currently playing out:
1) Received USPS mail about being selected for Jury Duty for the State Of New Mexico County Of Sandoval on May 10th.
2) I read the summons and here is a quick summary of what is stated on this page:
A) "You will be notified prior to the time you are required to appear"
B) "Complete and SIGN the enclosed Juror Qualification and Questionaire Form and return by May 13th, 2016"
C) Panel 4 -- "You do not need to appear at this time. You will receive notification by phone as needed.
D) The rest of this 2 sided page just states about General Information and Instructions for Jurors. Read it all and not much about anything.
Alright where to start?
First I received the mail on Friday the 10th after I got off work and was home by 4:30pm. Hmmm, now I have to fill out the questionaire and mail it back to be received by Monday. Ok so Saturday I could mail it out but chances are it would arrive later than Monday. I can't mail it out as there is not return envelope so I would have to get the correct address, etc. Forget it. So Monday I miss the first hour of work to drive down approximately 13 miles away to hand deliver the questionaire. This is to Sandoval County Magistrate Court on Montoya Rd. in Bernalillo, NM. Of course the line inside is long and begins to get longer after me. One clerk at the window. About 7 minutes later I am now handing my questionaire to the clerk. She validates on a stamping machine and files it away. Nothing is said by her and she asks for the next person in line. Wow, I have a question can you not answer me? She tells me to go online and look at the website. Ok, what is the URL?......this is when I say forget it. This moron does not understand how to be professional and helpful in anyway. Is this what I have to look forward to?
So I go to work and ask a few people who have done Jury Duty. All the persons I asked were only familar with Albuquerque and stated facts that none of my paperwork supplied (which I only received the summons and the questionaire). None of it tells me much about this process. So I go by the written part as supplied on Step 2 part C and await for a call.
June 6th (today). I receive in the mail a summons to appear in Magistrate Court in Cuba, NM. 71 miles away. I need to arrive on June 22nd at 9:00am. Ok, interesting I guess I didn't realize Sandoval reached that far but no biggie. No phone call though.........how do they know that I will receive this letter? Why am I liable if I did not receive it? Really?
So I am now seeing red. Perhaps I am just jumping to conclusions and getting riled up for no reason. Well let's see if I am correct on that. I go online to get a little better understanding about how this process is supposed to work. I come across this site and start to read from page one all the way to it's last post from February of this year 2016. Doesn't sound good.
I locate the 13th Judicial District Court website and assume this is for what I signed up for? The location is on Idalia Rd off of NM 528 but browsing through find that the Magistrate Court information for Districk I, II and III.
Well I search the site some more and realize that at least on the site there is mention of an orientation that is supposed to be completed before jury selection/duty. And low and behold, a Jury Duty handbook too. What the heck is this? None of paperwork mentioned it anywhere so now I am really confused. I look at the Jury Duty/Panel Update and find Panel 4 has two days I am to arrive. One is June 20th and the other June 27th. Is this correct and where is my phone call as well as orientation? And how come the Cuba letter is not on here? Funny thing, next to Panel 4 it has an asterisk. Upon looking down for the asterisk meaning it states 'Orientation Done'. Say what?
So I suppose I need to call down to the clerk in Bernalillo to make things clear because right now none of this makes sense and show complete inconsistencies throughout if I am reading all of this right.
I'll update again tomorrow when I get more info. I am sure those who have posted here and have been selected and/or served probably have a better understanding of this but I want to make sure.
I have all that now but why couldn't they provide that information prior? Instead of being lazy, they need to update a lot of paperwork that is either outdated or outright incorrect.
I want to call to find out why the incompetencies exist. Making note of who I speak with as well. I may involve one of the local TV investigators to get things straight
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Mis-information or no information
