{"id":3670,"date":"2015-03-10T11:48:52","date_gmt":"2015-03-10T17:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramblindan.org\/?p=3670"},"modified":"2015-03-10T12:02:46","modified_gmt":"2015-03-10T18:02:46","slug":"jury-duty-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/?p=3670","title":{"rendered":"Jury Duty"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Justice<\/a>

The pans are empty. Why is Justice tipped?<\/p><\/div>\n

Time to roll me through the jury processor once again. It would seem to me that in a near Dallas county like Collin, there would be a multitude of prospective jurors. In my house either my wife or I get called to duty\u00a0about every two to three years.<\/p>\n

That seems rather often to me. The problem is they call at least ten times more jurors than they need as the lawyers \u201ctune\u201d the jury selection process. I think with that process and the fact that county residents with perfectly clear criminal records are getting fewer as the court loads get higher and higher;\u00a0The system pool (like area water lakes) must be running out of eligible \u201cclean\u201d resources. The 90% recycle rate (large call up, few selected) doesn’t help much.<\/p>\n

I can surmise that the pool level may be low, as I have been in major construction all my life. I have seen mandatory background checks become a major block for contractor employees being able to work on any of the major large projects I managed; And also be eligible for jury duty.<\/p>\n

I was a part of our general contractor management selection process requiring all subcontractors employees pass a criminal background check before setting foot on any of our projects. I would create and issue photo ID\u2019s with our corporate name as evidence they were qualified (clean background) to be present on site. This had nothing to do with their skills.<\/p>\n

Any non-qualified subcontractor employees could perform shop work off site. They could not come to the work site or even make deliveries.<\/p>\n

Many young people ruin their good record with a felony drug or DUI conviction early in life. This is baggage they carry for the rest of their lives that will now shut many doors in their working careers. Also prevent\u00a0jury duty. My son once worked for a fairly large contractor where he and only one other employee could get clearance for work at an airport. A clean record\u00a0has become a serious construction issue for some contractors and their crews.<\/p>\n

I don’t know if the\u00a0percentage incidence of criminal conviction\u00a0is getting any worse, but the requirement for a clean background has become a very high priority for good employment.<\/p>\n

As a pipe-fitter in my early days, I have worked on projects where I saw other trades people carrying hand guns on site. Those days are over, at least as far as my construction projects. There are still some macho type guys in some trades, but they value their continued employment more than getting in serious trouble. All my crews for the last 20 years (perhaps because of the background checks) have been a great working experience. They probably all get called to jury duty too.<\/p>\n

I am not critical of the jury process. Thank God we do that, as imperfect as it certainly is, I want to express my view of a possibly dwindling resource \u2013 clean citizens. I have no idea the depth (if any) in actual background checks for jury duty. All I see are\u00a0questions on the form. Just check the disqualify boxes (yes\/no), for indictment or conviction for theft\u00a0or\u00a0felony, or claim\u00a0the inability to read and write. Then DO NOT APPEAR. (That is what the form says… there are dozen\u00a0more questions.)<\/p>\n

The clean resource depth may improve. Collin County is receiving a population growth and several new high employee count major corporations are relocating to the area. That and all the people needed to support their service needs should increase the jury pool. This may be my last jury call? I can claim an over 70 (age) permanent exemption (question #18) if I desire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Time to roll me through the jury processor once again. It would seem to me that in a near Dallas county like Collin, there would be a multitude of prospective jurors. In my house either my wife or I get called to duty\u00a0about every two to three years. That seems rather often to me. The problem is they call at least ten times more jurors than they need as the lawyers \u201ctune\u201d the jury selection...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[92,113],"class_list":["post-3670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-observation","tag-culture","tag-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}