Blah- Jury Duty

[danaeris]

So I thought that I had to request postponement on my Jury service when I showed up. Turns out that maybe I need to request it before Friday, as in, this past friday.

I just called them up and tried to postpone, and they wouldn't let me. They said I was ineligible for a postponement. Well, the phone service said I was ineligible. There isn't anyone there now.

I really don't want to get jury duty. My students need me. On Monday I will call them up and find out why I'm ineligible and see if there's anything I can do about it. On the positive side, I don't have to go in Monday, but I AM supposed to call after 5 pm to find out if I should come in Tuesday. Wash rinse repeat.

Comments

[elf]

Jury duty is easy to avoid. Even legally. Whichever aspect of "bi poly pagan" comes up first, mention it as a potential bias. (If you're out of those closets in public,that is.) If you wanna cause trouble, when they do the "raise your right hand and swear.... So help me God" you can interrupt & ask the judge politely, "Which god am I asking for help, please?"

Show up in Friday night party clothes & heavy makeup. Facial piercings would help; bindis & henna are a good substitute.

Talk about the Fully Informed Jury Act. Tell 'em you believe in the right of jury nullification.

Guaranteed, at least one lawyer doesn't want to face you. Very likely, the judge will decide that for them. You might miss a day of work, but you won't be selected for the trial.

[deedeebythebay.livejournal.com]

Thanks, this is good info. I'll use it myself this week if I have to go in.

BTW, Questioner, what is your jury group #? Maybe we are in the same group.

[nathanjw]

Er, please don't do things like tell them you believe in jury nullification unless you really do, convincingly. If you have to go look it up on a website now to know what it means, you don't believe in it enough.

And wearing "different" clothes to convince them that you're an "unwanted" juror, while effective, is scummy. I also wouldn't be surprised to learn that it doesn't work as well in the bay area as it does in some other places.

Short version: If you're *trying* to get out of jury duty, you are doing something wrong. If they don't want you, they don't want you, but it's cheating a valuable and important system to try and tip the scales like that.

[koga.livejournal.com]

I could not agree more.

Jury duty is a civic duty and a small price to pay for the rewards of our (flawed) social and governmental system.

AG.

[elf]

If they want me to respect this "civic duty," they can pay at least as much as McDonald's is required to pay high-school dropouts for flipping burgers.

Every other job in the state has to pay $6.75/hour. But this one--for an unspecified amount of time, with potentially horrendous privacy restrictions--where they want all my best judgement and expect me to set aside all personal biases & sometimes ignore information that they gave me, pays less than the price of parking + lunch.

There are two settings where I set aside my personal biases & try to judge accurately & carefully: when I'm being paid an insane consulting fee, and when I'm religiously inspired.

They're not paying consulting fees... so they get the full Discordian approach to the legal system.

And they're welcome to put me on a jury; I'd love to serve on a jury. But I'm aware that two weeks at $15/day puts my family on the street... my appreciation for "justice" drops a great deal when I'm facing living out of a cardboard box.

And I don't advocate cheating or lying--just being honest. Even in the bay area, lawyers don't like wildcards on juries; they want to be sure that they *know* someone's biases. Weird clothes & weird opinions means that they don't.

I advocate mentioning jury nullification because I think most people (who I know) are for it. (And because I'm a semi-activist about it: mentioning the phrase might get someone else to research it on their own.)

I don't advocate telling the judge when they ask about potential biases, "Yes, I'm a religious fanatic of the Discordian faith, and I'm not sure whether that makes me biased, but many people tell me my opinions and approaches to problems are just whacked," because I don't think most people could honestly say that. *I* can, and I intend to if my financial exemption request is ever turned down.

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

I hear you that it's an important civic duty, but it would help if they had a system of scheduling it that respected the fact that citizens have lives, jobs, and incomes to earn. Questioner isn't looking to get out of it altogether - she wants a postponement. It would be very cool if she could schedule it for, say, summer, when school is out. I don't blame her for wanting to try and avoid disrupting the learning flow of her many students at the present time.

[nathanjw]

Most states give you one free postponment to any date you want within the next twelve months. A quick look on the web makes it look like California does that, too, and she missed the deadline for requesting one. Which is unfortunate for her, but not the state's problem.

Let me clarify

[deedeebythebay.livejournal.com]

I happen to believe in being a good citizen and doing jury duty.

For some reason my notification didn't arrive until the last moment and I couldn't, myself, get a postponement or an excuse.

And I have a legal excuse. I'm the care for my children.

If I get jury duty and have to stay there till 5:00, then the $15 they pay me won't cover the $45 it costs to have them in childcare and I'm currently unemployed and cleaning houses until I have a full time job.

At this point, I'll be honest (I always am) but I'll also use what tools I honestly can. And, since I'm not required to go in today, I'll call in and see if I can use their tools to postpone or cancel my service AT THIS TIME.