mark056 said:I was irritated by the one person in the article, a real estate broker, who said that he had given the courts enough for five weeks. Well, jury duty is a civic responsibility. Bragging about not getting selected for jury duty, demonstrates a lack of civic responsibilty which is ironic because so much written on this forum deals with how responsible gun owners are, and how we support the constitution and all of that. Jury duty goes back to common law and is one of the things that seperate us from a lot of other countries.
Respectfully,
Mark
Mark, I'm not defending the guy, but to put this in perspective . . .
- Real Estate agents (if that is what he really is) get paid ONLY commissions on sales and listings.
- If he is out on jury duty for 5 weeks, he earns $0.00 for that time and also loses prospects who end up working with other brokers.
- That is a significant out-of-pocket expense to incur to serve on a jury.
- IIRC, MA Courts pay something like $8.00/day for jury duty. I also recall a figure of $40.00/day which I think is for Federal Court jury duty. After taxes, you might be able to buy lunch (in Boston) on the $40.00 and you will have spent ~$28.00/day to park in Boston for the privilege.
It may be our civic duty to serve on juries, but the court systems "have not gotten with the times" and elevated their stipend for those that actually need their paycheck to pay their bills.