Looking for some free legal advice. An acquaintance who lives in Texas and attends Princeton has received a jury duty notice for Mercer County, NJ. The county claims he is a resident there, and the university has declined to help him dispute this. In addition to the travel cost, the date is the same as Princeton’s class registration, so this could impact his academic plans. Mercer County has issued warrants for non-respondents to jury noties in the past. What recourses does he have?
IANAL but is he registered as an out-of-state student with Princeton? Wouldn’t that be enough to show non-residency in that state?
If not, then he should resign himself to the fact that jury duty is a higher priority.
BTW, lawyers here prefer not to give legal advice on specifics and will generally say, consult a lawyer in your state. I can’t blame them. You’re asking them to do their job for free, how fair is that?Plus there may be liability issues.
If this issue is important enough, a consultation is cheap and worthwhile. If he can afford Princeton, he can afford a consultation.
Whenever I (also an NJ resident) have received a notice for jury duty, it includes a form and/or address where you should write to if you are unable to make the assigned date. Surely there is SOME kind of address or phone number on the notice. Can’t he send a copy of his student id and a few other important forms to convince the court that he’ll be out of the state that month, and ask to be rescheduled for the summer?
I was under the impression that in NJ students are exempt from jury duty. Seeing as serving on a jury could impede with his class schedule, (depending on the type of case, it could be months) I would call the jury duty office and plea hardship (I’m also assuming he has already paid for his classes, and let’s be real, Princeton isn’t exactly cheap). I am almost certain this would allow him to skip jury duty.
When I got jury duty notice a couple months back for Middlesex County, NJ, it came with a form you had to fill out and mail back. It was a list of five or six questions, any of which would exempt you with a yes reponse. I believe one was for college students. So, have him closely inspect everything that came with the notice to see if it says anything, and if not, call the Mercer County courthouse’s jury office. They will be able to tell him if he’s exempt due to student status.
A personal anecdote: When I was a Rutgers, I had my driver’s license registered to my campus address, so my parents could avoid paying car insurance. So of course I got a jury summons to Middlesex County. I wrote back ont he form that I couldn’t go because I didn’t have a car and I was a student, and didn’t get any response at all. So I, being a good citizen, showed up on the day after some extra effort to make it there. And of course when I went to check in, they said I had been excused.
So to summarize, I got out of it, but they didn’t tell me. Helpful??