Fuck JURY DUTY!!!!

As a lawyer who just tried her first case to a jury, I wanted to come in here and say, “Fuck you.”

Not just because you’re acting like an asshole, either. Mostly because you’re acting like a nimrod. Even if jurors with excuses can’t get out of it immediately, once you come to the cattle call, one of the first things you’re asked is if you’ve got a hardship reason to leave.

If you told them, “I’m in school, I’m going to miss a test, and my teacher won’t let me make it up,” you would be excused.

On the other hand, if you’re not willing to miss a few days, have a friend tape the missed lectures for you, get another student’s notes, and/or try to get a test moved because you’re going to be on jury duty for a few days, you are an asshole. You are, despite your proclaimed desire to be an educated person, too stupid to realize that you’re lucky to live in a country where jury trials are available, and too stupid to realize that serving on a jury is a privilege.

You flunk Civics 101. Better go hit the books.

CatPerson, your excuses are pitiful. You can indeed serve on jury duty and be a full-time student. I was a stay-at-home mom and served. That meant finding potential babysitters every single day, it meant lugging my children across town at 6:30am on days I had to report in, and it meant that I lost money each day I was called in. But I did it, because it is my duty as a citizen of the United States. If your fellow Americans can risk life and limb to protect your right to a jury trial, then you can suck it up for a few weeks and serve on a jury. Even if it’s a major inconvenience to you.

If there is not an exemption for students, then make an appointment with each of your professors and work out some contingency plan for handing in assignments late, for getting lecture notes and for making up tests. They will be flexible with you for no other reason than it would be political suicide for them to put up a resistance, though there’s undoubtedly a policy in place already which would back you.

Growing up means sometimes putting your personal needs. Or, as Spock said, The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.

You are exactly what’s wrong with this country: you want all the benefits our system has to offer without sharing any of the responsibility.

It’s a shame we can’t pack you off to any one of the many countries that don’t even bother with the illusion of a fair and equitable judicial system. Then perhaps your pea-sized brain would comprened what a privilege it is to be called for jury duty, regardless of the inconvenience.

Dipshit.

:smack:

In California it’s both voting records and DMV info.

Haj

I’ve already posted what an idiot the OP was, but I thought it fair to mention what my experience with jury duty is.

I’ve never served on a trial jury, although I was called once. I showed up for the cattle call and watched with interest the questions asked of other potential jurors. The trial would be for involuntary manslaughter, with a common-law spouse who was defending herself from attack by her partner. So there were a lot of questions about whether or not you had ever been a victim of domestic abuse, and also about your marital status. One guy answered in the affirmative that yes, he was married, and when asked for how long he replied “This time or cumulative?” And one woman, who said she was married, was asked"Do you prefer to be called Mrs. or Ms.?" In her best chilly voice she answered “It’s Dr.” Even the judge smiled. I didn’t serve on that jury because they got enough jurors before my number came up. But I followed the case in the paper and it lasted only four days, not too much to ask for a case involving life and death.

But I did serve on a federal grand jury, and was that an educational experience! Here in Kansas there are three cities where federal grand juries sit, Topeka, Kansas City, Kansas and Wichita. I live in Topeka, and I really lucked out, as the jury I was called to sat right here in town. We had one guy that had to come over three hundred miles, he lived in the western part of the state and Topeka is far to the east in Kansas. But distance was not an excuse, it is a duty. A grand jury sits for one to three days, once every six weeks, for a year and a half, so you have to be there twelve times. My employer continued to pay my salary, and the feds paid us $40 a day, plus travel expenses. For me that was a piddly amount, about $3 each time, as I lived less than two miles from the courthouse. But the guy from western Kansas got travel money, and a paid for hotel room, and meal expenses as well, since he had to come so far.

I learned things I hadn’t known. For example, a grand jury doesn’t decide guilt or innocence, it just decides whether or not a trial is warranted, based on the information presented. And that decision is based on a majority vote, not unananimity. There were 23 jurors in our group, so that meant at least twelve had to vote for a trial, although offhand our decisions, except in one case, all turned out to be unanimous. The only people allowed to be present are the judge, the court reporter, the federal prosecutor, the person giving evidence, and the jury. Most of the cases presented for consideration were about guns, or drugs, or both, but one was a messy multi-state bankruptcy case, and one was a sexual harrassment charge. The latter was federal rather than state because it occured on a military fort. Two junior high students said a teacher in the post school had tried to fondle them. Those poor girls each had to enter a courtroom full of strangers totally alone, no mother to support them, nothing else. In a situation like that, the system has to have interested responsible citizens, who don’t look on their civic duty as something to be got out of.

Whew. I didn’t realize I was going to go on so long.

As best I know it’s prefectly legal for them to ask you and perfectly legal for you to tell them to hit the road, if you so choose.

CatPerson, look at it this way. First of all, you should be able to do at least some studying or writing while you’re sitting around the jury lounge. Secondly, I don’t know how your local courts work, but these days, the courts tend to let you go before lunchtime if you’re not assigned to a case, and they don’t think they’ll need you in the afternoon. In fact, in my county, if you are not assigned to a case by the end of the first day, then you’re done. Keep in mind, that “assigned to a case” also includes the status of undergoing the jury selection process. In my experience, this usually doesn’t last more than a day, so the last time I did jury duty, I was there a day and a half. So, for you, it might be no worse than being down with the flu for a couple of days, rather than the academic career buster you seem to think it is.

Even more good news: although it is harder to sidestep jury duty than it used to be, I don’t think many (or any) judges would force you to sit on a high profile case lasting months, if that would impose a dire hardship. So you’ll likely be done in three to five days.

Yes, absolutely. I am in the process of polling the jury from the case I just tried. We got a verdict, but we’re curious as to why they decided as they did. (The verdict was a mixed bag.)

We’re not out to harass jurors; we’re just wondering how we can improve at our job.

Why didn’t he just ask to be excused because he had a medical condition which would make jury service extremely difficult? Medical problems are the number one reason why people are exempted from jury service.

Actually, you’ll be called, but you’re unlikely to be enpaneled if you work in any facet of criminal or advocacy law. I’ve been a member of the bar in four different states for some twenty years, I’ve been called to report in each of those states, and I’ve served once – I would’ve served twice, but there was a settlement in the second case after we were empaneled but before the trial opened.

As Sublight pointed out, exercising one’s franchise does not open someone to the responsibility of jury service on a jury, and ought not, and does not in law – voter rolls simply represented an easily accessible means of knowing which people lived within a jurisdiction. Being a citizen is what opens someone to the responsibility of jury service, because as a citizen, s/he is entitled to receive a trial by jury. It’s that simple, if you can have a jury, you can be called to serve on a jury.

But no organization has decided any such thing, they’ve worked within the confines of what’s typical, which is that students have summers off from school, therefore those requesting a deferrment from service based upon their student status are deferred until the summer. The OP happens to atypical, and got angry that his unusual circumstances are not being accomodated in the way that he demands by a system which is simply not designed to handle such accomodations in the manner he wished that it would. To go so far as to call the jury officer a bitch because she followed the procedure and to start this whiny OP about how he refuses to be a good citizen, he deserves absolutely no slack. He acted like an ill-mannered, self-righteous, above-the-law, illiterate, self-absorbed little putz and needs to go get bent. moodtobestewed said it best and it deserves to be repeated:

And for that, CatPerson you are a.) a waste of an education and b.) need to hang your pathetic little empty head in shame.

Yet another reason added to the ol’ list that I cannot fucking stand cats.

I served on jury duty one time back in the olden days when you had to sit around all day for two weeks waiting to get called (I never was). Fortunately, I met a really nice man whose company I enjoyed so much that I ended up taking a volunteer job where he worked. So fulfilling my civic duty led to my volunteering to help my community–a good situation all around. I never got the romantic relationship I was hoping for out of it, but I’m glad I met the guy and I’m very proud of the volunteer work I did. It set a pattern for the rest of my life.

I don’t know why you people are coming down so hard on the OP. His/her position is entirely reasonable, and moreover is based on firmly enshrined principles of Constitutional law. In fact, if I remember correctly, the Third Amendment goes like this:

“No individual person, particularly the young, shall be inconvenienced in any Way or by any Means. The largesse of the Government serves to hand each Citizen his or her desires at all times without any expectation of Responsibility in return. Each individual young Person will be granted a Universe entire to revolve around his or her Person and serve his or her Needs and Whims.”

So, obviously, the OP is not out of line to think that this jury duty nonsense is a violation of his or her right to get whatever he or she wants whenever he or she wants it. Clearly, the government bitch should call and apologize and offer to lubricate by hand the OP’s vibrator-with-dolphin-attachment and/or latex groin-and-butt Jenna Jameson lifecast, as the case may be. All of you irrational people who think that the OP shouldn’t expect the world to lie down and offer itself in a presentation of glisteningly engorged primate…

Uh, what?

Quartering of troops?

Really? Is that what it says?

Well, which one is the one I…

Really?

It isn’t? Not anywhere?

Oh.

Well then. That changes things somewhat, doesn’t it?

All right then — CatPerson, fuck you and your stupid head, you selfish, snivelling ninny. Yes, that’s much better.

Boy, I’m glad I posted. All this stuff I thought I knew, but didn’t really. Good thing I shared my stupidity with the world so it could be set right in the end. And it’s an especially good thing that I pay attention when people smarter than I are telling me I’m being an ignorant turd.

Young Person here, who was called in a couple weeks ago for a jury selection. At that time, I was pretty sure I’d be attending business college soon, and wouldn’t be able to serve, but when my number came up I dragged my ass out of bed (a good 4-5 hours before I usually got up) and went in. Turned out that it was going to be a murder trial that’d last until March. I just went with half of the room to the judge, told him and the attornies that I was claiming hardship 'cause backing out of going to college would be a financial burden, and was home by noon. Easy-peasy. I wouldn’t mind serving on a jury sometime, just to see what it’s like, but I don’t want to give up my life for that much time, or have that much responsibility. By the way, I started classes yesterday, and so far I think I like the place.

Yes, he did act like an arsehole, and calling the phone person a bitch was not good, but I think you missed my point. He didn’t know that “no organisation has decided any such thing” becasue (as he specifically said) he was told on the phone that it was an invalid excuse. This is a case of miscommunication: the person on the phone meant that he would have to go in and tell the jury duty people in person about his commitments in order to get out of jury duty, whereas the OP thought she meant that he had to do jury duty, and that all he could do was postpone till summer. That doesn’t excuse his being a dick head to phone chick, but I think you need to take his ignorance into account, something which it appears you haven’t done.

I’d like to get off the registered voters list. Is there any way I can do this? I do not wish to vote for anyone ever again. I think the only way to get out of jury duty forever is to provide a death certificate to get off the master list.

Yeah, give up your US Citizenship and move to a country where the citizens don’t have to think about things like responsibility and community. I suggest Mars. There’s only one way to obtain a death certificate, and I’m not sure you’re going to like it.

IIRC, most states used to pull names for jury duty from voter registration records. When they realized people weren’t registering to vote for the sole purpose of getting out of jury duty, they starting pulling names from DMV records.

I don’t know how it works in your state. Be safe - give up your license and just don’t ever vote again. Just remember, though - no bitching about elected officials when you don’t vote.

Oh my gosh, Cervaise. Just priceless.
Especially this:

And this:

Oh, my.
Note to self: Never, EVER take a swig of pop right before reading anything posted by Cervaise. IT is getting tired of replacing keyboards.
Did y’all know that Diet Coke out the nose REALLY hurts?

Do you keep all your cats in stacks of little cages or do you let them run wild and free?

Okay, so you’re going to take out your frustration about jury duty by never voting again???

Oh, wait. Yes, I think having you as far away from a polling booth is a Very Good Thing, also.