I've never been called.
My wife has been called 5 times...
Suck it up & do your duty
That's typical questioning in selecting a jury. I would be more worried if the defense attorney didn't ask that question in jury selection!
Cy
If you vote, or own a car, or whatever is required in your state, you just have to go do it.
I have been called multiple times, even twice for the grand jury.
The worst thing you can do is whine and say that it would be a great inconvenience to you. It's generally a great inconvenience to most who are called, unless you are old, retired, and generally bored. It's also a great honor and right and privilege to serve.
That said, it's unlikely that you will be unduly inconvenienced, unless you are seated on a a grand jury for six months. That happened to my wife while pregnant. She did her civic duty. Many civil cases are settled on the courthouse steps and you will never have to appear. I had a three month stint at that and never had to appear in court.
I'm unaware of any clients I would work for who would not understand the jury duty obligation and if they did not, in this economy, I could find several surveyors I would trust to complete the obligation, and help me retain my clients.
I was talking to a friend about Jury Summons and his response was "I always throw those away; I never received it."
I thought man that guy has more guts than me but I bet he's right, it's not like they send those with any proof you received it. If you just ignore it they probably won't even bother to chase you down in a large metropolitan area.
Government employees get paid when on Jury Service so I go although the last time my group got excused before I ever had to show up (you check on the internet for your group number).
Thank you all for the input
I knew that I'd come to the right place for advice on this one. I appreciate all of your comments and the personal anecdotes that went with them. Being inexperienced in the matter, I sought advice here because I knew there was knowledge to be had, and no shortage of opinion.
I plan to honor my civic duty, if it comes to that. I will call in to the county jury automated phone line tomorrow night, and if my number is called then so be it. There's a chance that there will be no jury trials on the docket, so the point will be moot, but still I wanted advice from more experienced hands, and I got it here.
This may be an interesting week for me. The county I live in is by far the largest in this state and one of the largest in the USA in terms of geographical area (5300 square miles, a large portion of which is Indian reservation). On the other hand, population-wise it is one of the least inhabited counties in the nation (7 persons/square mile, alot of it is wilderness). There is basically one US highway in the county and it takes a long time to go anywhere around here, especially this time of year. I live at the far north end of the county, by the Canadian border. Jury duty for me means taking a room at a flea-bag motel in the county seat for x number of days. No worries--- I can do that, but my business has to shut down for the duration, and I have to cover those costs. Hence my concerns.
It's interesting to note that my father (with the same name as me) was a county magistrate and also one of the District Court judges here for many years during the 70's and 80's. During the late 1950's and early 1960's he was also the County Engineer/Surveyor. Long story there, which I won't go into here. Needless to say, he's a very interesting fellow indeed.
The judges currently sitting on the county and district court benches are all contemporaries of mine (I'm 58 years old) and they have tried many cases in front of my Dad or worked with him in legal matters throughout the last 30 years. Most of them if not all, are his proteges in terms of legal jurisprudence in this county.
If I ask for it, do ya think they'll cut me a break? I'll let you know how that works out.
Thanks again!
Bill
> I'm not opposed to performing my civic duty, but the timing right now is not so good.
>
> My question to others who may have been in this position is: Is there any possibility that the court will accept the above as a valid reason to excuse me from serving on a jury? Any advice as to how to approach this?
My suggestion is to answer all questions asked of prospective jurors fully and completely. If you are a typical land surveyor, you will have the sort of opinions or experiences that will make one or the other side want to excuse you from the jury pool. Seriously.
Just be sure to do this in a way that it is clear that these are actually your opinions, not merely something you've cooked up to get out of jury duty. For example, if you answer that you have a prejudice towards Walmart based upon some views you hold, be sure to tell the judge that you feel that you can still be fair by allowing for your prior negative experiences. He or she won't make you sit through the trial and the Walmart attorneys will want you out of there faster than the speed of light.
The point is to not to be included in the jury pool.
If you are dismissed from a case for 'opinions', you only return to await another trial.
Some courts do plan to have enough jurors on hand to administer various cases.
So one will still be sitting there in limbo reading a PB or listening to the MP3 player.
Being a sole proprietor of a business that has been seriously roughed up in this recession is a valid excuse to be dismissed from the get go.
> The point is to not to be included in the jury pool.
> If you are dismissed from a case for 'opinions', you only return to await another trial.
Well, it sure didn't work that way for me. I got out of listening to several days of plaintiff's attorneys giving large retailer's attorneys a run for their client's money by a relatively compact answer to the question of whether I had ever done any work for the retailer. I answered "I believe that I've done work for ____ Store Property Company No. 2, but I'm not certain whether I've ever done any work for _____ Store Property Comany No. 4." That was enough to make the attorneys for _____ want me back to my office as soon as possible.
Then next summons for jury duty that I got was years later. It was a case in municipal court where some character was contesting his arrest for public intoxication and was foolish enough to think that a land surveyor would be disposed to let him slide on the ticket. On that one, I served as foreman of the jury that included the asian woman who worked at a liquor store and the salesman whose best friend appeared to be James Beam. We nixed his contest of his arrest and did it in record time.
I didn't register to vote until I was about 22 because I didn't want my name in the jury pool. Someone convinced me that they didn't choose that way. So I registered to vote and within six months was called for jury duty. I got picked for a child molestation case. That makes all kinds of terrible things go through your mind, but what this guy was accused of doing was very very trivial and didn't sound like molestation to us (the jury). The state did a terrible job of presenting their case and had conflicting testimony and no physical evidence. The state's poor performance got the guy acquitted. I did however, meet a guy on the jury that ended up being my best friend for years.
I have only been called 3 times. I reported the first time. Not selected. It was one of those "Republic of Texas" trials. Fellow was claiming the state/county/city didn't have jurisdiction because they were not legally constituted courts of the "Republic of Texas".
The last two I had moved out of the court's jurisdiction. Those just took a telephone call.
😐
