How hard is it to get out of serving on a jury?

I get out of jury duty about once a year, by just losing the summons before I read it.
Unless it’s sent certified mail, they have no proof it ever was delivered, much less that you got it.

In my little town, it’s damned hard to get out of appearing for jury duty. Several years ago, my wife was nine month’s pregnant when she received a municipal jury summons. When she contacted the court to explain her situation and that she would be unable to appear, the judge rather arrogantly told her to appear or face the consequences. Rather than face being pregnant and in jail, she appeared. Our third child died, possibly as a result of a doctor’s appointment she missed in order to appear in court.

We complained loudly to the city council and the newspaper, but that sorry judge still presides. Neither of us has received any sort of jury summons ever since, which is odd in a town our size.

See, now I"m dying to hear about it!
As for Shelf Stable…I didn’t realize skipping jury duty would get you banned from the Straight Dope!

Drum God, very sorry for your loss.

From my experience (and from what I’ve heard from attorneys) the single easiest way to get out of jury duty: say you’ve been in lawschool or taken law classes (like to become a paralegal or something).
In all the jury selections I’ve been in, this has yet to fail. Anyone who indicates they even took “some” law classes is eventually excused.
Now, if it isn’t true for you, then you have to decide if you want to deal with perjury…

I am an engineer, and tend to get excused. From what I’m told, if either side feels they don’t have a very strong case, they will eliminate the “analytical” types - those that go just by the facts of the case. If either side feels they have a weak case, they need to play more on the emotions of the jurors - so the analytical types won’t help them.

My Dad is excused from jury duty because he owns a small business (a jewelry store). It’s not open if he’s not there. They let him off not because of loss of his own income, but because the closure would cause loss of income to his employees. (There are security/insurance reasons why he must be on the premises at all times when it’s open)

Drives my mother crazy because she would love to serve (her company pays full pay), and never gets called. Dad gets called all the time.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. When I lived in suburban Cleveland, Burt Griffin (who was then a sitting judge on the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas) was called for service. One of the Plain Dealer’s female reporters happened to be in his pool. She wrote a column in which she expressed her surprise that he was accepted as a member of her panel. Naturally, he was elected foreman!

If I were a lawyer in a case where a judge was a potential juror, I would be very leery of striking him. I would definitely not like to give the impression that I thought he couldn’t make unbiased decisions if I expected to appear before him at some point in the future. Ethics would nevertheless require me to do it if I thought it was in my client’s best interest, but I think human nature would tend to cause the lawyers to try to think up reasons why it was in the client’s best interest to keep him on the jury.

I had to show up for jury duty earlier this year. I was the second prospective juror seated during the voir dire. The case involved a guy who broke into a house during a burglary and apparently sexually assaulted someone in the shower. As the second juror I was the first one to mention that I had a close friend who had a sexual assault case go through the courts, and the case was resolved in a plea bargain. I also mentioned I was the victim of property crimes, but nothing violent.

It was weird. Every second person after me, I kid you not, had a close relative (usually, a daughter) who was raped or murdered in response to the question “Have you or anyone close to you been a victim of crime.” Now, it’s quite possible they were all telling the truth, but it seemed rather suspect to me. Anyhow, none of them got bumped. The only four people that got bumped were me and three others who said viewing some sensitive photos in evidence might keep them from keeping a fair mind about the case. I did not say the sensitive photos would affect my judgment. I also worked for about a year for defense attorneys (and only after getting off the jury did I realize that I actually had delivered motions to this judge’s chambers before.) I suspect the last fact is what kept me off the jury, but the attorneys I worked for think it was the defense that knocked me off after I told them the story. It could have gone either way, but I certainly would have been impartial.

I’m an engineer also, and have never gotten excused. Here in Silicon Valley there are plenty of us, and I haven’t noticed engineers getting excused more than average - in fact less than others. It would be interesting to see some statistics on this, if there are any.

A defense lawyer of my acquaintance said he would use a preemptory challenge on someone if [ul][li]he were a male[]wearing a suit and tie[]had an American flag lapel pin[/ul].[/li]
By odd coincidence, I was male, wearing a tie, and had an American flag lapel pin.

Regards,
Shodan

I recently had the opportunity to observe voir dire for a wrongful death case (in Federal court on diversity jurisdiction), and saw plenty of this. The “for cause” challenges were almost all used on people who had some sort of conflict–a surgeon whose patients would have to be rescheduled, a guy who had non-refundable airline tickets to go on a vacation, a person who worked nights and wouldn’t be able to stay awake during trial, someone who had training scheduled at work. The only other challenge for cause was used on a juror who had a past business relationship with the defense attorneys.

I can’t comment on the peremptories–they did them by number, and I hadn’t been keeping notes to match numbers with responses.

Regarding the “lawyer exception,” I have at least one counter-example: I know of a city prosecutor here who once served on a jury in a rape trial.

I’m an engineer too and last time I was called for jury duty, both lawyers asked me very particular questions about how my engineering experience would influence my judgement. I thought the questions odd at the time (and I can’t recall the specifics unfortunately). I was selected for that trial (drunk driving case w/o injuries) and wound up being the only juror in favor of conviction (although I decided to ultimately vote for aquittal).

I’m kind of bummed that I never get called. I wonder what the process is here in my part of town.

Are summons pretty obvious, or is there a chance that I’ve tossed them out with the junk mail?

Several of my fellow debate coaches get called all the time, and then promptly get sent home when the attorneys discover what they teach. Neither side really want someone on a jury who is trained to spot logical fallacies. :smiley:

Working in the insurance industry gets you tossed off of a variety of cases.

Around here they say “OFFICIAL JURY SUMMONS” on the front. Things might be different over the Eastern time zone, though.

The prosecution might not. If I were a defense attorney, that’s exactly who I’d want, at least if I thought I had a halfway decent case.

I went through voir dire on a case to decide if a convicted child molester could be released. I was booted from the pool by the prosecution soon after I said I thought that psychiatry was a fuzzy science. When asked about it by the prosecuting attorney. I also answered truthfully if somewhat tartly to a really condescending question about what engineers think about facts. He also asked an accountant if he liked numbers to be added up correctly? God what an ass.

One of the attorneys was a complete and condescending ass. Not that I would hold that against his client, but what if I ansswered one of his questions (like “Do you think juries are important.”) with a “Yes . . . I’m not a complete idiot.”

The 100% guaranteed, foolproof, never-fail way to always get out of jury duty: These days, it is very likely that among the questions each prospective juror will be asked is something along the lines of, “Do you agree to follow the judge’s instructions, even if doing so conflicts with your own conscience?”

Answer that with something like, “I cannot, in good faith or honesty, answer ‘yes’ to that.” The judge will be very incensed, he might lecture you about it being your duty to put your conscience aside and follow the instructions, but if you still say that you just cannot give a “yes” answer to that question, the judge will dismiss you, guaranteed. You are in no danger of perjury, you are simply answering honestly, and how could your answer be challenged in any way? Even if the judge suspects that you are answering that way with the deliberate intent of getting out of serving, what can he do? Call you a liar and say, “I think you really will put your conscience aside and follow my instructions.”

Nope, it’s the surest way to get out of serving on a jury.