Comments by "SmallSpoonBrigade" (@SmallSpoonBrigade) on "Federal Crt Says Inmates Might Deserve Minimum Wage for Work They Do" video.

@TeamDryRub8463 The college I worked at had furniture that was made via slave labor at prisons. I can't imagine that they were paying market rates for it.
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Around here they still aren't paying much for jury duty, but they have changed how it's done so that jurors only have to physically go tot he court if they're being selected to be a potential juror. I just had my summons expire a few days ago and I got a post card indicating that I'd been selected and to register. For the month or so, I just had to check my email and voicemails to see if I'd been selected and since I wasn't selected by the end of day on the final date indicated on the card, my service is complete. Had I been selected, I'd still have to go to the courthouse and sit on the panel while they went through and figured out which jurors would be on the jury for the trial, but I'd only have to go in for one of those and if I didn't get on it, I'd be done. It was 2 days or one trial when I was previously on jury duty, but this is far more efficient and reduces the unnecessary inconvenience on people that are just in the jury pool. The pay for actually being on the jury is still pretty disgusting, but the legal system has little say in that. Other than to actually start ruling that a lack of compensation leads to a violation of the parties' rights to a jury of their peers for any proceedings that guarantee a jury trial.
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@ankorag Yes, also keep in mind that the amount we're talking about probably isn't even that much. I was on a jury for a month once between jobs and it took well over a thousand potential jurors just to find the dozen or so that were required for the civil trial. I don't regret doing it, but I can't imagine how I would have been able to afford it if I wasn't living with my parents while I looked for work. It was kind of cool to learn that around here jurors in civil cases have the right to submit questions to the court to potentially be asked of witnesses. I sent a question up, they debated whether to allow it and how to word it and ultimately it was asked. I never expected to get to ask a question of a witness during a trial. I've been summonsed like 6 times, and actually gone in twice and I wonder how much of the burden really is shared when they have to issue all these extra summonses to get enough people that are capable of affording to be without income for a couple weeks. This most recent time though, I would have received pay from my employer to cover it, unfortunately, I wasn't picked.
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@aaadamt964 You can blame the legislature for that, but I'm not surprised. Although with the pandemic, things like that ought to be permissible via zoom or other video conference software as being physically present doesn't really impact the oath beyond the ability to take somebody into custody immediately for being held in contempt. I've been a believer for a while that we should have a system set up where there's facilities in every county for people to participate in remote trials, for example when suing and being sued they should be able to turn up at court somewhere near them and only actually show up in person if there's a legally justifiable reason for it. It would help deter conduct that crosses jurisdictions from being unaddressed due to being unaffordable to litigate.
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@jacobew2000 The difference is that for profit prisons take some of that money and send it to investors rather than just staff and maintenance.
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