I don’t know about Florida specifically, but in my experience…
Show up at the courthouse or wherever your reporting location is. You will have to go through metal detectors/security similar to an airport. Bring a book or something to entertain yourself, there will be a lot of waiting around.
Everyone reporting for jury duty will get signed in and sit in a big boring room. You may be in this room for hours. Court officials will call a group of 20-40 people by name or juror number and lead you into a courtroom. A judge will give you basic details of the court case and ask if anyone has any disqualifying circumstances (you’re the sole income provider for your family, you’re a student and it’s finals week, the case involves a profession or industry that you’re part of, you personally know one of the people involved, etc…). Both lawyers will ask your group questions to determine if they want you on the jury or not. This isn’t a one-on-one interview, it’s more “Raise your hand if you think insurance companies are the bad guys,” or “does anyone here have really strong opinions about sexual abuse?”
If you get selected to participate on that jury, you’ll stay behind and get further instructions from the judge about the trial and when you’re to report back next. They should give you a general idea of how long they expect the trial to last. If you’re not selected, you may be released immediately or you may get led back to the holding area until you’re called for selection on a different trial. This process could repeat several times. It all depends on what the case load for the courthouse is that week. You may get lucky and get released as soon as you check in if they’ve filled all their juries for the week already (I had this happen once), but since you’re showing up on a Monday I wouldn’t bank on it.
Before you’re released, you should get a piece of paper that acknowledges you’ve fulfilled your jury duty and something to show your employer to prove you weren’t just playing hooky from work.
Bring a book. Be patient. Expect it to take most of the day.
This pretty much mirrors my experience. The only thing different I saw was the assigned potential jurors group numbers. Each group was assigned to a particular courtroom/judge. If all the cases accepted plea deals they’d let that entire group leave. Most people were out of there by 10am.
Of course, I was assigned to the one case that did go to trial. The jury selection took the rest of the day. I was number 26, but enough people before me got eliminated, so I ended up on the jury. A couple of people after me did too.
The trial, for the most part, was insanely boring. It was for a DUI and vehicular assault, and the only reason it went to trial was because it was his 3rd strike. The first day we had to watch the entire recording from the police body camera from them arriving at the accident, to arresting the guy, driving to the hospital to get his blood drawn, and all the way to dropping him off at the jail. The only entertaining part was when the defense attorney put the drivers girlfriend on the stand. She started saying some bat crazy shit, and the defense attorney trying to cover for himself asked her if she had any mental health problems. This caused her to lose it and she started yelling and screaming at him.
In the end it was a great learning experience and gave me a closer look into the criminal justice system.
I don’t know about Florida specifically, but in my experience…
Show up at the courthouse or wherever your reporting location is. You will have to go through metal detectors/security similar to an airport. Bring a book or something to entertain yourself, there will be a lot of waiting around.
Everyone reporting for jury duty will get signed in and sit in a big boring room. You may be in this room for hours. Court officials will call a group of 20-40 people by name or juror number and lead you into a courtroom. A judge will give you basic details of the court case and ask if anyone has any disqualifying circumstances (you’re the sole income provider for your family, you’re a student and it’s finals week, the case involves a profession or industry that you’re part of, you personally know one of the people involved, etc…). Both lawyers will ask your group questions to determine if they want you on the jury or not. This isn’t a one-on-one interview, it’s more “Raise your hand if you think insurance companies are the bad guys,” or “does anyone here have really strong opinions about sexual abuse?”
If you get selected to participate on that jury, you’ll stay behind and get further instructions from the judge about the trial and when you’re to report back next. They should give you a general idea of how long they expect the trial to last. If you’re not selected, you may be released immediately or you may get led back to the holding area until you’re called for selection on a different trial. This process could repeat several times. It all depends on what the case load for the courthouse is that week. You may get lucky and get released as soon as you check in if they’ve filled all their juries for the week already (I had this happen once), but since you’re showing up on a Monday I wouldn’t bank on it.
Before you’re released, you should get a piece of paper that acknowledges you’ve fulfilled your jury duty and something to show your employer to prove you weren’t just playing hooky from work.
Bring a book. Be patient. Expect it to take most of the day.
This pretty much mirrors my experience. The only thing different I saw was the assigned potential jurors group numbers. Each group was assigned to a particular courtroom/judge. If all the cases accepted plea deals they’d let that entire group leave. Most people were out of there by 10am.
Of course, I was assigned to the one case that did go to trial. The jury selection took the rest of the day. I was number 26, but enough people before me got eliminated, so I ended up on the jury. A couple of people after me did too.
The trial, for the most part, was insanely boring. It was for a DUI and vehicular assault, and the only reason it went to trial was because it was his 3rd strike. The first day we had to watch the entire recording from the police body camera from them arriving at the accident, to arresting the guy, driving to the hospital to get his blood drawn, and all the way to dropping him off at the jail. The only entertaining part was when the defense attorney put the drivers girlfriend on the stand. She started saying some bat crazy shit, and the defense attorney trying to cover for himself asked her if she had any mental health problems. This caused her to lose it and she started yelling and screaming at him.
In the end it was a great learning experience and gave me a closer look into the criminal justice system.