Jury Assembly Area
Before being called to a trial, jurors are shown a video explaining their role as a juror and what happens in a courtroom.
When a court is ready to select a jury, a court official chooses a group of people at random from those in the jury assembly area. More people are called into the courtroom than the 12 required to make up the jury. This is to allow for the random selection process.
The average trial lasts about a day and a half. People may be called to sit on more than one trial, which may mean more than one per day, but that depends on the number of trials going ahead, how large the juror pool at the court is, and the random selection, by computer, of jurors from that pool.
At all times, other than in the courtroom, the jury will be kept apart from the other people involved in the trial, except for the ushers.
Waiting Times
You may sometimes experience delays during your jury service. The length of court cases can vary a great deal and there are a number of factors that may delay them. There may be legal arguments which have to be heard in the absence of the jury, the defendant may be delayed on his journey to the court or the defendant may change his plea to guilty which means the trial will not go ahead at all.
Every effort is made by the court staff to see that jurors are not kept waiting and to release as soon as possible those not likely to be required to serve on a jury on a particular day.