Who here has served on jury duty and has a good excuse to get off?

me ^ | Feb. 6, 2002 | me

[Jean S]

A friend was recently called for jury duty and that's how she answered. She wasn't trying to get out of jury duty, that was how she felt. She was surprised when she was rejected for duty.

[jackbill]

Print this thread and show the judge or any of the attorneys and you'll be off........ No problem....

No need to do that. Just tell them that you're a Freeper.

[southland]

I agree, A person should serve if given the opportunity. We have a Great Nation and the Privilege to serve is Great.

[FreePaul]

I could loan you my "Hang The Bastard" button. Works every time. Seriously I have been called to jury duty more times than I can remember and served on many juries. I have never used any excuse available to me until a month or so ago. I am well over the age to be excused but have never used the excuse. I received a summons and called the number that they had for scheduling another time. I had something else going on. They told me that they did not change the time in spite of the fact that they had a procedure listed. I used my age excuse and told them what I thought of their shabby system.

[VMI70]

Stop the presses!! you do have brain fade, but it's ot as bad as mine.
Further research reveals 5 boxes:

"America's freedom rests on five boxes:
the Soapbox, the Ballot box, the Jury box,
the Witness box, and the Cartridge box."

Militia Proverb

Sleep well.

[HIDEK6]

Try getting drafted. That was for two years.

Serve and be a man!

[VMI70]

you=You
ot=not

[diefree]

I sat through a trial of someone I knew. He was accused of robbery, 1st degree. He was no angel, he had been arrested many times for breaking into cars and stealing radios and other such crimes. I didn't believe he was guilty of the robbery crime as I heard the evidence against him which had a lot of flaws to it.

He was found guilty, however.

After the trial I spoke to one of the jurors who told me that he and another guy were voting not guilty until the judge threatened to sequester them until they came in with a verdict. They caved in and changed their vote to guilty. The defendant got 7-10 years.

If I were on trial I wouldn't want anyone to be on the jury who wouldn't be willing to do the right thing and who would convict someone because they didn't want to inconvenience themselves.

[Come get it]

The system is completly nuts

Probably because reasonable people don't serve. The only ones serving are those too stupid to be able to get out of serving.

[Jacvin]

I tell the truth every time and it works every time. The lawyer or Judge will ask if you will apply the law as written. I say no. I follow a higher law and would judge by my own moral code no matter what the law says. You will be excused every time.

[jackbill]

I am off the list forever. I have no hearing in one ear ...

What did you say?

[Standing Wolf]

A trial by a jury of one's peers is one of our most important civil rights; it includes the obligation to serve as a juror for others. Do as you please, but as far as I'm concerned, rights come with responsibilities.

[spunkets]

Nice post!

I was called recently and ended up being questioned for a jury to hear a child support case. In WI it's a felony to miss payments for 3 months. The pair were <22 y/o. The guy had a public defender that was absolutely worthless and the prosecutor was sharp. The only people allowed to sit on the jury, were those that had never in their life, been unemployed. It was a joke, it was plain to see the guy didn't have a job and a source of income sufficient to cover the payments.(pre-trial stuff) The prosecutor was guaranteeing a conviction and the defense sat there like a bump on a log. I wanted to stand up and say, "hey judge, you going to let him railroad this guy like that."

The guy had neither an impartial jury, or counsel.

On a lighter note they did spend >30min trying to seat an old deaf guy on the jury, it was hilarious! At several points the judge screamed out at the top of his lungs, "can you hear me, can you hear what I'm saying?" "What?...I'm a little hard of hearing," came the response. Simply amazing!

[jackbill]

I've heard that lawyers don't like to sit engineers in juries--too much logical thinking going on.

That's almost always a fact. However, I had an engineer working for me who sat on a jury in a trial of a guy who killed a state trooper. He was the only holdout on the death penalty and the guy got life. The juror - my employee - waited a long time for a pay raise.

[Jean S]

"I recently thought about what so many gave up in the 1770's and now I can't bear to safely part with two weeks of my time."

Well said.

[leprechaun9]

Tell the Judge that any trial you sit on that the person is already NOT GUILTY and that you are ready to vote before the trial begins!

[PJ-Comix]

When I lived in L.A., I received a couple of summonses to serve on a jury. I didn't even offer any excuses. I just threw the summonses away. So what were they going to do? Arrest me for failing to appear for jury duty? If they did then I would have insisted on a JURY trial for failing to appear.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

[Lchris]

I'm in New York and have been called for jury duty twice in the last half-dozen (or so) years. I didn't try very hard to get off because, as it turned out, it wasn't that much of an inconvience at the time. From what I've seen though, today it's very hard to get off jury duty in general, but quite easy to be dismissed from a specific trial. I've never seen anyone who tried to get off a case not get dismissed. The lawyers don't care about "civic duty" mumbo jumbo, they don't want any jurors with a bad attitude. Just about any excuse would work --can't afford to take off from work is the most common. Then the lawyer will ask, "will this situation affect your ability to be impartial" or something like that, and you say, "yes," and that's it. Of course, you still may be called back, but that way you won't get stuck in any long trials. Also, to answer those who take the civic duty thing seriously, I wouldn't worry too much about "subverting" a system that pays judges and lawyers hundreds of thousands a year and expects jurors to sacrifice possibly weeks of their life for $10 - $40 per day. Maybe when this system was enacted people could afford to do this; now, most of us can't.

[BJungNan]

I always thought jury duty would be fun. Will they let me trade with you?

If you are looking for an answer to get out of jury duty, ask, "Uh, excuse me, I was wondering, after the trial, will we get to sentence him too."