
A ‘glitch’ left young people off jury rolls - Pinckney
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/us/baton-rouge-jury-glitch.html
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olliej
Meanwhile I (a foreigner who has to report every change of address I make)
continue to be selected for jury duty and then reply again with “dude I’m a
foreigner”

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tareqak
I can see a reason for it to be the way it (ICE having possible access to a
database of foreigners on US soil), but I agree that dealing with repeated
problems like this one is exasperating. I think Selective Service does the
same thing (occasionally asking foreigners to enlist for US military service
by accident).

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sand500
>occasionally asking foreigners to enlist for US military service

Only if there is a draft.

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olliej
Draft isn’t asking, so maybe it’s periodic “hey would you like to be in the
army?”

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hermitdev
Registering for selective service isn't being drafted, it's adding you name to
the registry of those eligible to be drafted, if needed.

US males aged 18-25 are compelled to register, under penalty. You must also
update the agency in event you move. Despite a recent US SCOTUS ruling that
only requiring males to register is unconstitutional, the agency stands by the
law as written. See "STATEMENT ON RECENT COURT CASES PERTAINING TO WOMEN AND
SELECTIVE SERVICE REGISTRATION" at [1]

Selective service also has nothing to do with Jury duty - thats normally
driven by voter registration as it tends to be one the most accurate records
of who lives in a jurisdiction.

I've been of voting age for more than half my life now, and I've yet to be
summoned. :shrug:

[1] [https://www.sss.gov/](https://www.sss.gov/)

~~~
olliej
Sorry, I was unclear -- what I was trying to say is, if you're registered for
selective service couldn't that result in the various military sending you
"hey, do you want to join the <insert service here>"?

I wasn't a permanent resident during the age window for selective service, so
I can't speak to any of the selective service rules, just my unceasing jury
summons :D

~~~
hermitdev
In my experience, no. I was recruited as I was graduating high school, but
after I declined the Navy after finding out the recruiter was lying to me,
never heard from any branch again. (I was being recruited for ROTC) I can't
say if my experience is typical or not, but I don't think the selective
service is allowed to act as a directory for spamming for recruits. It's there
as the registry for the lottery that the draft becomes, if enacted.

~~~
olliej
Ok, what is it the recruiter lie about (given this is a theme, and I've never
been actively recruited, I would pity the military service that wanted someone
with my vision and coordination :) )

~~~
hermitdev
Basically, the recruiter promised I'd being doing work in my destined field
(was studying electrical engineering) during summers off from school. When I
was on campus for a scholarship interview, the officer there in charge of the
ROTC program chuckled and told me straight faced something along the lines of
"no, you'll be swabbing decks until you graduate."

So, I opted to go the self paid route. Figured after that I couldn't trust
anything.

After scholarships and a little financial help from my parents, I graduated in
2003 with about 15k in loans on a 120k priced 4-year education with a dual
BSEE and BSCPE.

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pkaye
As compensation they should increase the probability of them being called by
10x for the next few years.

~~~
mises
If the goal of a jury is to be unbiased toward the person on trial (attempt
equal representation from the citizenry), wouldn't biasing the selection now
violate the right of the defendant to trial by jury of peers as much as the
instance in question? We would do well to remember that the objective of jury
selection is not to give all groups equal representation simply for the sake
of fairness but to give the defendant a fair, unbiased jury for a trial.

It wouldn't be fair to today's defendants to do this, just as some sort of
"justice" for those of yesterday.

~~~
pkaye
The defendants who were previously found guilty under the old jury selection
can ask for a second trial under this new jury. Any the young people who were
deprived of jury duty also get a chance.

~~~
mises
A jury that is 10x more likely to have youth? Not necessarily any more just.
That's not right either. Couldn't we just strive for a just jury?

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mises
This doesn't seem purposeful. It seems like someone finding confirmation bias
because a group more likely to identify with their beliefs has been partially
left out (in this case).

At least for the "anti-black" case mentioned, here's the case itself:
[https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-6th-
circuit/1604783.html](https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-6th-circuit/1604783.html)

Reading over the technical part, it seems like an honest mistake. Who's to say
everyone doesn't end up affected at some point or another? I agree we always
ought to minimize such errors, but they're arguably better than the human
alternative (against which many accusations of various biases have been
leveled).

I think we're more likely to find examples of this because the normal cases
(where minority groups aren't affected) aren't litigated as widely.

~~~
tareqak
Now that there is evidence that this sort of thing can happen, it should be a
responsibility of the justice system to have regular audits in place to ensure
that it stops happening.

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js2
I’m surprised at how few times I’ve been summonsed. Once in Miami when I was
maybe 20 and made it to voir dire but was dismissed. Once in Santa Clara, CA
but never got to voir dire, and twice in Raleigh, NC but when I called the
night before was told I wasn’t needed. So I’ve basically only ever even been
interviewed once. I’m 47. I’ll probably have a summons waiting for me in the
mail tomorrow.

~~~
rxhernandez
I've been called for jury duty almost every year since I was 20 (I'm in my
late 20s now). It's a frustrating waste of time considering how much lawyers
hate engineers being on the jury.

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tareqak
What would be the penalty for the company and the state government in this
case?

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GavinMcG
For a penalty to be appropriate we'd need to be able to identify a harm to
someone. That's a stretch in this case, I think.

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Animats
It took defense attorneys years to figure this out?

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Meph504
You must not know much about public defenders offices, in general they are
under funded, and undermanned, and it isn't like there is anyone monitoring
the jury composition of every case in the state at any given time.

The problem is compounded by youth being the number one group of people who
naturally aren't called for jury duty. You have to be registered to vote, or
have a drivers lisc. to even be in the pot to be selected as a possible.

Young people tend to move around a lot more than other segments of the
population, so even if they are called, they may no longer be reachable at the
address the state has for them, or they have moved out of state entirely and
are no longer eligible to be seated.

Many youth, don't have access to reliable transportation to get them to a
courthouse even if they are on one of the two list mentioned above.

They are also in one of the largest groups of people, who just flat out refuse
to show up.

You also can't be a felon, you have to be literate, and able to
read/write/speak English (This is in Louisiana law.) and considering that
Louisiana has roughly a 25% youth illiteracy rate.

So it isn't really difficult to see, how this could be overlooked.

And honestly, there isn't a chance in hell that a defense attorney noticed
this, and more likely one of the many justice reform groups in Louisiana that
found this, or received a tip about the issue.

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seniorsassycat
I've been called once in a decade of being elegable. Seems I should be able to
calculate the odds of that happening

