Travis County Jury Duty (Austin: office, place, rain)

[luksky]

Has anyone here ever been summoned for jury duty in Travis County? I have impaneling tomorrow at the judge’s office and I’m having someone drop me off, and I can’t find out any information anywhere about how long impaneling is going to take..
Thanks

[Trainwreck20]

Originally Posted by luksky

Has anyone here ever been summoned for jury duty in Travis County? I have impaneling tomorrow at the judge’s office and I’m having someone drop me off, and I can’t find out any information anywhere about how long impaneling is going to take..
Thanks

Do you know what court it is for?

I had one that took all morning and into lunch time. I was selected for duty, but did not have to report until the next day. If voir dire had gone faster, it was my understanding that we would have continued on to the actual start of the trial.

Then next time, I was in and out of there in about two hours?

[ScoPro]

At least that long, but for me it was 25 years ago and was in the Federal District Court.

[austinnerd]

Was summoned by Travis County Court maybe 10 years ago, got there on the later side so sat towards the back, they first bring up the folks that claim they have a legit excuse to not serve, then they had everyone go to one of two lines (no difference, just two separate lines). They took the first X folks from each line, got to whatever number they were interested in, and sent the rest home. IIRC, I was done around lunch time. Can't vouch for whether they do this every time and/or sitting towards the front/back makes any real difference (more likely where you place in line but the lines generally formed front to back based on seating) so YMMV.

[Trainwreck20]

They assigned us numbers when we arrived, no hanging-back allowed :P. It was district court, though, for a capital murder trial. Other courts have other processes, I am sure.

[austinnerd]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

They assigned us numbers when we arrived, no hanging-back allowed :P. It was district court, though, for a capital murder trial. Other courts have other processes, I am sure.

Yeah, each jurisdiction handles it differently. I actually made it all the way to jury selection for a City of Austin trial (someone accused of drug dealing) and that process was completely different (assigned a number and call in at a particular time to see if your number was selected and then show up for jury selection).

To clarify my last post a bit, I do now recall that the two lines weren't random, but rather split by last name (e.g. last name A-M to one line, N-Z to another).

[Snowpacked]

Yes, it took all day and was about 10 years ago. I was determined to not get selected and succeeded.