Just got a jury summons today, and it coincides with when I was going to travel to Taiwan for a year (flight is this June - the juror summons requires me to be on call for May to July.)
Never tried to get a deferment before - is “I already bought the plane tickets” legit cause? I am also a student taking online classes, but that seems like a weak excuse. How legit does one’s excuses have to be?
In every court I’ve been in, “I already bought plane tickets” is a good excuse. Especially if you’re going to be out of the country for a long time. They don’t expect you do cancel your plans to be in Taiwan for a year on their account. Just deal with it before you go, so they can excuse you.
Judges vary on excuses for classes, etc., but most will try to accommodate you. Some cases are three days, and you might not need an excuse. Some are three months, and a ton of people will have some kind of hardship excuse that will have to be acknowledged.
That’s going to really vary by jurisdiction. In my small county, I can just call the jury coordinator and work it out. Others probably require more. I only see the jurors who make it to the courtroom. In that setting, judges take your word for it (but you are under oath)
Thanks. My other concern is that I hear jury duty can only be deferred once. I would hate to get out of it this time, but then the next time, this Texas court summons me but I’m living in Taiwan at the time but then am not allowed to defer a 2nd time - or is being out of the country always a legit reason to avoid duty?
The first time I was called for jury duty, we had just put down deposits on a vacation rental house (the first week was so my wife could attend a work related seminar). We called and asked what could be done and they told us to have her boss write up a letter verifying the situation and they would reschedule – and they did. No muss, no fuss.
A month ago, I was called for jury duty and was prepared to serve. I was one of the first to arrive and I sat over in a corner by myself but after an hour and a half, the combined perfumes and colognes of the other draftees gave me a monster headache and it was getting difficult to breathe. When the judge asked who needed to be excused, I went up to the bench and told her my asthma was kicking up and the colognes/perfumes… and that was as far as I got, she dismissed me toot sweet. Just took my word for it.
A prospective juror for the sentencing of Parkland school shooter Nikol as Cruz asked the judge to dismiss her from duty earlier this week, claiming she didn’t have enough time to fulfil her civic duty because she’s both married and has “a sugar daddy.”
In my county, we can defer jury duty once for any reason, or no reason. I’ve done it many times when I had a conflict. You have to specify an alternative date, and on that day they don’t accept excuses.
I’m sure the rules vary by jurisdiction, but I’ve been called for jury duty about a zillion times in Hawaii and I’ve been legitimately excused every time, including just a few days ago.
I’d actually love to serve on a jury and have been disappointed each time I had to explain why I couldn’t. My latest excuse related to the fact that I was called to serve at the court in West Hawai’i, whereas I live in East Hawai’i. The rules say you can be exempted if you live more than 70 miles away, which I do, and as much as I’d like to be a juror I don’t want to drive150 miles/day for who knows how long in order to serve.
The not-so-fine print on the Hawai’i jury summons explains everything you need to know about who is exempt and how you go about claiming an exemption if you are requesting one. I would think that @Velocity 's summons would tell him everything he needs to know about how to be excused (the Hawaii County summons gave me the option of submitting a copy of my itinerary if travel plans were my reason for asking to be exempt).
Bullshit. There simply aren’t the resources to go after the myriad people who don’t answer their summons, many of whom never saw it because they moved or something. I never shirk jury duty but the best way to get out of it isn’t to come up with an excuse, it’s to just toss the summons in the trash. How can they prove that you actually got it? Your scenario virtually will never happen.