I don't usually comment, but I wanted to share my experience. I was on a sequestered jury recently and they told us not to go over 25 dollars, including tax, which is a meal and a soda. They choose the nicer restaurants, but the meal was up to you to pick. Since a jury is 12 people with 2 alternates, plus the escort team, I can see a dinner like that adding up. We also had lunch brought to us at the court houses and some snacks while we were waiting. For the hotel we had to partner with someone, but I had my own bed and it was a nice hotel. A couple of people didn't have to partner up, because we had an extra boy and extra girl. We really appreciated all their efforts to make us comfortable. It was not a fun case to listen to, but we only had to stay two nights, so to me I felt they did their best to move things along. If we were allowed to go home each day, would it really be fair to the person on trial? Would folks be more prone to call in sick close to the end? If we were treated poorly, it would be hard to cooperate and take things seriously. All in all, my experience there was a good one due to the friendly service and courteous staff. I don't have any suggestions on how to change the way they organized the jury. The fact that it is so high for the year shows that we have so many criminal cases to go through.

could have all been eliminated if they could have shot them on site, one bullet to the head should do it.

I think your headline meant to to say Half a Million Spent on Sequestered Juries' Meals, Hotels. It sounds like a SouthHaven jury if that much was spent on ONE jury.

I think that's why we have "Budgets," hoping our court systems have enough sense to factor in an approximate amount based on past case experience, and looking at future cases that "May" require a jury to be sequestered in Shelby County. I believe that some of the cases where the jury is sequestered could move a little faster (isn't this controlled by the judge over seeing the case), but I wouldn't won't to be a target for people like the two on trial now for being "Hit Men," and we don't have enough police to place one at each of the jurors homes. So I say do a better job of budgeting or take a chance and put your trust in the jury following courtroom instructions. After all they only have to avoid CNN, Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, etc., shouldn't be that hard! (THE)