Join our FREE personalized newsletter for news, trends, and insights that matter to everyone in America

Newsletter
New

I'm A 911 Dispatcher, I Was Selected To Serve On A Jury For A Case That Happened As I Was Working. Could Anything Backfire On Me, Personally, For That?

Card image cap

Location: Colorado, USA

So I got the normal jury duty summons. Joked about it with co-workers for a few weeks. I was 100% sure, 10000% sure that I would never make it... Then my number got called so I had to go through selection. And my number was low enough that I was in the box right away.

So the judge does his judge things. I spoke up when he read the names of witnesses to be called and said that I recognized the names of a number of police officers because I work as a 911 dispatcher. I said I didn't have a personal relationship with any of them and that I believed I could be impartial.

During voir dire, the prosecutor asked me how long I was with dispatch (8 years), asked me if I could be impartial, and asked if I thought that police officers had more credibility because they were police officers. I was pretty emphatic at saying "no"... I said they're just people and have just as much motive to hold to their oath as anyone else. Then she moved on to the next juror.

When the defense was interrogating people they didn't ask me a thing... And that's probably good since, in my opinion, a lot of other people on the jury were stone cold dumbasses that they had to dial in on. Multiple times he would ask "ok who else agrees with what this said?" and then get them to explain their dumbass and/or racist take so he never really got around to asking me more questions.

So, eventually I get sworn in, and they start the trial an hour later with opening statements and called the first witness, asked him a few questions and we were done for the day.

During the proceedings they had mentioned the date of the incident a few times, lets just pretend it was December 12th, 2024. I knew at that time I worked Sunday through Wednesday 6pm to 6am, but I had no idea what day December 12th was, so I didn't really speak up. When I got home, I looked at our scheduling app, and I was 100% on duty working the fire/ambulance channel for the area. I can almost guarantee that I was the one who dispatched the ambulance to this incident, but I remember absolutely nothing about it.

So in the morning before day 2, I told this to the court clerk, who said she would pass it along to the judge to share with counsel. I'm assuming there were no objections or the judge overruled them because nobody said anything to me about it.

So is there anything else I should do to protect myself? Somebody said I should contact the Judge or their staff to get it in writing that they were notified of my potential conflict. I know that wouldn't hurt, but from my point of view, negligence in jury selection on their part doesn't constitute emergency on my part. They knew my profession before voir dire started, I mentioned it a few times, and then I notified them I was on duty the date and time of the incident in question. If any appeals happen and this conflict is highlighted, will I need to do anything?

submitted by /u/Razvee
[link] [comments]