I’ll almost certainly be summonsed for jury duty some time between now and 30 June next year. I received a letter a couple of months ago informing me that I was on the jury roll for the 2010/11 year.
Actually, this is a situation where you CAN volunteer.
If there’s a certain time during that year that is most convenient for you, call them up and ask to be scheduled for that time. Generally, they are happy to accommodate you – it increases the chance that you will show up.
Actually, now that I think about it, I did go on a summons once. We were waiting, and then they said they had enough jurors. So, they made us drive a few blocks in case they needed more jurors in another case. When they didn’t, we were dismissed with a “thank you, you have served your civic duty.” I haven’t received any letters after that.
Maybe, if you do it once in my state, you get moved to the back of the line?
I still don’t buy the arguments for volunteering.
Since you don’t know what case you’re on, since a lawyer can strike you out for good reason how would you know.
The only thing I can think of is unemployment. Right now we have a lot of it. A whole bunch of people would volunteer to get on a jury in hopes of getting paid. After all I am underemployed, I am not doing anything anyway.
If I volunteer, may a lot of people would do so. You’d get a disproportionate amount of unemployed people serving and that could “look funny.” Suppose more blacks than whites are unemployed in your area. The black people volunteer, then you as a lawyer exclude too many, you look like a racist, even though you’re not.
I am fully aware that is a weak argument, but I am just trying to look for a reason.
If you’re employed do you get adequate compensation in the US for the time off work? Here in the UK the maximum allowed is far less than most people would actually earn and if it turns out to be a long trial you could stand to lose a bundle.
On the other hand it’s pretty easy to get excused. When my partner was selected we wrote to say that given our commitments any time off work could push us into debt (which was certainly true). She was excused duty with no fuss at all.
Not really, no. As I got paid time off from my employer for jury duty, I didn’t get anything from the state. Had I received the jury fee (New York State), it would have been $40 a day. For comparison, minimum wage in the United States is $58 a day. My personal daily wage is something like $177 a day (rough translation from a salaried position to an hourly wage). But your employer does not have to give you paid time off for jury duty, so you indeed could lose a bundle.
I would imagine that mentioning the words “jury nullification” would get you excused from jury duty the moment the DA heard about it.
In my venue the court randomly selects names from the driver’s license list and sends questionnaires to pools of several hundred at a time, perhaps 600 or so. Every procedure from that point is handled uniformly for all 600. Of the 600, perhaps 300 will qualify because they returned the questionnaire and were not felons and so on. Then as cases come up for court, a certain number of those 300 are notified and called to jury duty for a week or two. The court now uses a phone system to allow potential jurors to know the day ahead if they are needed the following day. Jurors for each case are then selected from among those in court using voir dire.
The dilemma is that so many people do not even return the questionnaire. The questionnaire is not a summons. To get a response from those non-responders would require equal random treatment in the form of a summons and show cause. The court simply does not have the resources to do this so they limp along and occasionally make a public case of those actually called who did not respond to an actual summons.
For what it’s worth, the only time I was summoned to jury duty was when I was right in the middle of a 13-month tour in Iraq. So the “military/overseas” flag doesn’t work too well, at least in Illinois.
I believe that, unless they had first cross-checked his Social Security number against some database and discovered his death, they would have issued a warrant against him for contempt. In attempting to serve the warrant, they would either have found no one home, and presumably a neighbor would tell him that he had died, or found me home, in which case I would have shown them a copy of the death certificate.
However, as I was the executor of his estate, I believed it was my responsibility to answer the jury summons on his behalf, the same way it was my responsibility to settle his debts, and if I had not done so, I also might have been in contempt. I don’t think any charges would have been pursued against me. Someone here may know that better than I do.
ETA: As he was older than 65 and in poor health, he could have gotten an automatic excuse anyway. I have never been called for jury duty.
It depends on where you work, my office pays your full salary for as long as you’re on jury duty. My partner’s job pays something like a month of jury time. The court pays something like 15 a day (excluding the first day) and my office allows you to keep that while some companies expect you to turn that over to them.
The court has a big book listing most companies in the area along with their time off policy. If it comes down to someone that won’t get paid during a trial and someone that will, they will more than likely select the person that is going to be getting paid.
The last jury I was on had several people that got really screwed. We had two people who were working for temp companies, so they didn’t get anything expect the court pay. It was also right after the writers guild strike and one woman was a writer. So she went from not getting anything for months because of the strike and then a month long trial where she still wasn’t getting any income.
Op, what County & State do you live in? Rules differ.
A slightly different topic is: I know that at least in CA, you can volunteer to be on the Grand Jury. I know that because I did do, and served for a year. In fact, everyone had volunteered. And, it counted as Jury Duty for purposes of being called again. In fact even after the exemption time, I was called for regular jury at a very bad time for me, and I mentioned I had served on the Grand Jury for a year, so the Judge let me go.
I’m shocked that you have a 50% response rate. In California you get a summons, and can return it for a one time delay, but otherwise you have to call in to see if you are needed - and they do take attendance. What happens to those who don’t show up I don’t know. Mightn’t a you have to go unless you return something saying you are a felon policy work better?
In the UK it’s (the maximum you can claim for loss of earnings) £64.95 per day up to and including 10 days of jury service. £129.90 per day for 11-200 days and £259.80 per day for 201 days plus of jury service. Of course trial lasting more than 200 days ae incredibly rare.
Was your wife actually excused as opposed to deferred? If she was she was a lucky as that excuse would not normally be accepted for an outright excusal.
Actually she was excused, there was no mention of deferral, which was fortunate because of course deferral would simply have postponed the problem. For a ten day trial for example we would have been looking at a loss of well over a thousand pounds even with compensation. We’re barely treading water at the moment, that would have been disastrous.
Ouch. I have never seen that. What sort of trial was it? If it seems like something that’s a waste of time, like a full trial for littering, I guess I could see some “laziness,” but otherwise, the mind boggles.
No, it doesn’t work that way here. If you’re summonsed you can apply to be excused. If you’re excused, you go back into the pool to await a further summons. You can’t “book in” for a more suitable date at some time in the future.
I don’t follow the logic; why would someone volunteering make them prejudiced one way or the other?
In Los Angeles County, you can volunteer for Grand Jury service. IIRC you need to be available on Mondays.
It’s the other way: being prejudiced one way or the other would make you more likely to volunteer.
In your case it’s just sheer randomness. In hers, either that or she’s not on the jury roll. Does she vote? Drive?