Fuck Jury Duty!

I agree with the jury nullification. However, if you'd rather not go, just don't respond to their initial letter. That's where most people go wrong. If you reply, they know you got it. Without a reply, they don't know shit. The US Postal Disservice loses millions of pieces of mail a year. I've ignored about 6 of the notices and the subsequent "please contact us immediately" notices.
 


charlesmartel said:
I agree with the jury nullification. However, if you'd rather not go, just don't respond to their initial letter. That's where most people go wrong. If you reply, they know you got it. Without a reply, they don't know shit. The US Postal Disservice loses millions of pieces of mail a year. I've ignored about 6 of the notices and the subsequent "please contact us immediately" notices.
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isn't the stats for that, like 80% of people never actually show up for jury duty?
 
I did it here when I was 18, pretty run of the mill cases but still interesting. We had an assault/affray and a bank robbery lasted a couple of weeks, which is the norm here. At the time there was a child sex case in the same court, lasted about 3 months I think. I was waiting at the time and actually got paid more doing jury service than if I'd been working, so no complaints there. (Here they match your wages + a bit for travel & costs).

Hope I get called again now I'm older, (a bit) wiser and less of a pothead! (Eating hash cakes and smoking buckets the night before jury service, getting phoned up my the court as late and falling asleep in the jury box isn't a good thing to do!)
 
Here in PA (Philly, at least) owning a business is not a restriction.

Jury Nullification does seem like a plausible reason they'd excuse you. Last time it was because I worked for a law firm, and the time before that, because I mentioned I was married to someone who had conducted forensic psych evals.

Unfortunately, this is the 3rd time in 3 years I've been summoned- I think Philadelphia's jury pool must be limited by people who haven't previously been convicted of a felony or served more than one year of aggregate time in jail.
 
kingofsp said:
I just throw the notices away.

COME GET ME.
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A while back I read a post from somebody who worked in a jury pool distribution office, who revealed internal secrets. He said that the courts don't have enough money and manpower to chase after you to serve, so tossing notices out will keep them at bay for a while. Not that I'm actually endorsing this...

Some of it depends on the number of people they can call to serve. For a long time, my county had been relying on a limited number of qualifying of jurors due to mass exemptions, and I was being served constantly with jury notices. The law has been changed to eliminate most exemptions in Nassau. I get letters from them far less frequently now.

One very upsetting letter I got about a year ago came from Federal court, and they wanted me to march over to Downtown Brooklyn at 8:30 am to possibly serve on a federal case that could take months. Oh, wonderful!

I dug up a law that excluded me from serving due to being a sole proprietor. Presented copies of my business card, corp. papers and everything establishing the business. This worked, and I was so relieved that I dodged that bullet!
 
I sent a letter stating that I was in College and it would be detrimental to my exams. (lies) Received a letter a few days later stating I was OUT!
 
guerilla said:
I believe that if you tell them you believe in the principle of jury nullification, they won't let you participate.

What most people don't know, is that the jurors are allowed to judge not only the evidence, but the law being applied. Judges inform the jury about the law, but usually neglect to inform about the power of the jury to nullify bad law.

The entire common law notion of a trial jury by your peers is to protect you from being tried for an unjust law.

More stuff they don't teach you in school.
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^ THIS. Works for me everytime.
 
ChrisS said:
Next time show up in stained wife beater tanktop with your hair all fucked up. Mumble to yourself constantly and randomly twitch your neck like a crack fiend.

This will drastically lower the chances of them picking you.
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Unless you're in Alabama.
 
I've been summoned just once, and I received the notice 2 days before a 4 month trip to the Middle East that I had been planning for a year. So I just copied my plane ticket and wrote on the copy "Will be abroad" and sent it to them. I didn't stick around to see if it was a valid excuse or not. I would have gone even if it wasn't.
 
They don't send the summons registered mail, at least here in California, so they have no fucking clue if you ever received it. I can't see how it would stand up in court if they decided to come after you because you didn't respond to the summons.

One day, I will do jury duty, but only when I'm retired and just looking for an excuse to get out of the house and away from the wife for a while. Hopefully get a capital murder case and get sequestered.
 
In my country, you only get called up for jury duty if you're registered to vote.

It is illegal here not to vote once you are registered, but it is not illegal to never register in the first place (thus excluding you from voting one tool over the other, or from jury duty).

problem solved :p
 
This thread is gold. There's a lot of ways to get out of duty here. I like the nullification stuff, didn't know that existed!

My only summons was when Texas mailed me at my second address in California to tell me that I had to come. I had long since had a CA driver's license. The logic is beyond me. Clearly I was no longer living in TX and they knew it, but still summoned me.
 
I can confirm that in CA you can show financial hardship and get out of jury duty. I said that I was self-employed and jury duty would mean that I could not earn a living.

The clerk set something up so that I would not be called for jury duty for 2 years.
 
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