The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Jury Duty (Lock)
Mim
dead.Registered User regular
dead.Registered User regular
So, tomorrow I have jury duty. Thankfully it's a day off of school. However, considering I am a full time student, being on a jury would be...well troublesome at best.
Will they exempt me? And if it's legal to post here...is there a way to get out of jury duty? My teacher in Colorado once gave us the questions they asked, so I know about that process and how easy it is to get out of that...but I don't know if it's the same for Pennsylvania (I live in Philadelphia).
Is this going to be an all day process? Should I bring something to read?
TL;DR: I have jury duty. Help.
Will they exempt me? And if it's legal to post here...is there a way to get out of jury duty? My teacher in Colorado once gave us the questions they asked, so I know about that process and how easy it is to get out of that...but I don't know if it's the same for Pennsylvania (I live in Philadelphia).
Is this going to be an all day process? Should I bring something to read?
TL;DR: I have jury duty. Help.
BlueSky: thequeenofchaos Steam: mimspanks (add me then tell me who you are! Ask for my IG)
Mim on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
Non joky answers, I THINK you can get out of Jury Duty three times, and full time student should be a liable excuse.
Because that's usually the case these days. More often than not you'll have to call in every evening to see if you are required to show up the following day.
If you're a student there should have been fair time between you getting the note to show and when you had to. You really really should have told them before your required day and they would have granted you an extension, not an exemption.
You can show and try to explain that to them, no harm there. You're a student and they can defer your requirement to show. Hell, I had to defer mine 4 times. Still had to call in to "serve" by the end though.
If you have to show and stay, yes...bring something to read. Yes... it will be an all day process. Yes... they will pay you some pittance.
Don't try to get out of it. Man, don't be that guy. It's worth doing once and it's really not all that painful. Hell, if it's state or local level doing it exempts you for the next year. If it's federal you're exempt for the next four years.
That and you may be exempt for any other number of reasons.
That said, you should absolutely bring something to read. The only time I went, it took somewhere between 2-3 hours and most of that was spent waiting. Not having anything at all to pass the time would have driven me insane.
still didn't get picked for a jury however...
<edit> and OH JESUS YES bring something to do... it's like the DMV but even more boring... and takes all day, or two, or three
They did send me the paper, but I didn't think that writing "student" in the reason why I needed an extension would work, so I crossed it out (though it's still legible). Crap.
I just need a way to not get picked. I contemplated dressing in some of my hot topic gear, but then I figured it would be my luck that it would be some kind of case related to alternative cultures and they would think I would be able to relate and shed light somehow to bring some neutrality to the decision making process.
I know if I raise my hand during this one specific question (I would post this, but I don't know if its illegal/against the law...which would make my ethics teacher one bad ass chick if it was..) it would get me out automatically (and it's actually what I believe, so I wouldn't be bullshitting them).
I'll try to explain to them tomorrow my problem. I'll bring my sketch book and some music or DS/PSP if that doesn't work...
B happened to me a month ago - I had to go to sit around for the day, we finally got called for a trial that was going to last 3 months, and then I got excused from that trial because of being a student; if it was a short trial, however, I don't think you get excused.
Fortunately duty has not called again since I graduated.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/62196/30-rock-jury-duty
"Jury nullification" is the idea that if a law is unjust, the jury can find the defendant not guilty even if the facts of the case prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he broke the law. I won't debate the questionable validity of the concept here but suffice it to say, judges aren't fond of it. It used to get used quite a bit pre-Civil War during fugitive slave abetting trials, for instance, and it's made a slight resurgence recently in statutory rape cases. Generally, if a judge finds out you've even heard of the concept then that judge won't want you near a jury.
I won't dress in my spooky clothes then. I do plan to bring my planner with me so I can organize some stuff...they say I can't bring my cell phone. Ugh. I guess I'll bring my iTouch so I can send e-mails some how...or do you guys think that would be barred too?
Maybe you should just suck it up and do your civic duty. EVERYONE called for jury duty has something more important to do, at least in their opinion. I can guarantee that out of all the people stuck in the jury pool, "I have to go to class" isn't even in the top 20 as far as hardships go.
Maybe you'll have fun, or at least learn something about the judicial process if you stick around.
I'm sure that would be fine; CA actually doesn't have that rule (people were certainly talking on cell phones in the waiting area), but obviously if it goes off in the actual courtroom you'll get a nice yelling at
However, I wouldn't be shocked if there wasn't a wifi network to use
Or maybe I'll get dropped from all of my classes and have an even harder problem getting my GPA up. I would go and serve if this was the summer time, but because my grades are on the line I really can't afford to do this at this moment.
Some states let you defer, so you might be able to do that. Depending where you are they aren't going to let you off the hook completely.
I wouldn't try the jury nullification thing, it'll probably just get an eye-roll from the judge (because they've never heard that one before!) and might just annoy them enough to not let you go. I mean, the cases where jury nullification is actually an issue are like 1:1000.
Yeah, I'm not withdrawing from my classes, it's too late in the game for me to do that. I also don't want to have to push back my graduation date because I'm busy already trying to make it for my original date.
Well, I'll just answer honestly. When we did the question thing in class, that's what got me booted as a juror in the first place in the mock jury selection my teacher ran with us. I hope they let me defer. I'll bring my student ID with me just in case. Hopefully they'll understand I didn't really understand what could and could not go under the deferment section...
Haha, I don't want a fine. I'm a broke, full-time college student. I don't really have any money.
All day? Maybe. But if PA is anything like one state south of you, you'll only have a few hours actually in a court room at best. Much of it will be spent sitting around waiting to see if a case might need you where you can ready/study/whatever.
Multiple day trials are relatively rare.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Long story short I got lost trying to find the court house, ended up getting there like 15 minutes late. The lady was giving the speech by the time I entered the designated meeting room. When she finished she pulled me out to her office and wasn't mad or anything.
Sat there all day long and was finally told that anyone who hadn't been spoken to yet was dismissed as things were taking longer than expected.
I think I may have made out because I got there late and was at the bottom of the list.
Definitely bring a book or something else to do for a full work day. Shit is fucking boring.
If, and that is even a pretty big if, you end up being asked to sit on the jury, explain your predicament truthfully and they will likely let you off the hook at least for a little while.
You could probably have accomplished this by calling them when you got your summons, but oh well too late now.
I wouldn't go into jury selection and try to say something tricky to get out of it, because you won't really know anything about the case, and anything you say could just as easily be seen by one attorney as advantageous to their client. And even if you do get out of it, unless it's close to 5 PM you're just going back to sit in the jury pool until you're called.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
You really should have told them this early though. I happened to catch the flu virus about 2 weeks into my time, and it was annoying as fuck trying to get an excusal for a few days.
So we go through some stupid video made in the late 70's about being on a jury, and then the wait was to begin. I think like an hour later half the people got dismissed for the day and were told to call some number to see if they needed them for the rest of the week. I actually got called into a court room pretty shortly after and they started asking us questions. I figured I was not going to get this case because it was about a person who broke a driving law while using alcohol and I don't drive or drink and they knew that from asking me.
But they picked me, we did the main section of the trial the first day. I was told to come back for closing statements and verdict tomorrow. So on the second day we listened to the statements and had to discuss the case. I really enjoyed this part as like everyone was on the fence about it, but I convinced them all the verdict of my opinion was the correct one. But I also could have gotten it to go the other way if I had wanted it to, it made me really see our legal system in a different light. Not necessarily a good light though.
But because it took a while to discuss we had to be sequestered for lunch. I was really unhappy about this cause I figured we would have been done by lunch and was going to meet my girlfriend downtown. I had to blow her off with no way of telling her but she saw me with a group led by a sheriff so she figured it out and went shopping. So I figure we were going to some place downtown like Jimmy Johns or something. Boy was I wrong in an awesome way. We ended up at one of the best restaurants in downtown St Paul. It was a nice fancy lunch buffet, and not the cheap buffets you would see on tv. This is good quality food, and I was getting all the salmon I could eat for free. This was worth doing jury duty alone, best meal I have had for a while. I rarely get to go to places that cost over $20 a plate.
Afterwards we gave our verdict, that kind of sucked cause either one side or the other is going to be disappointed in you. But we were all dismissed from the rest of the week so that was cool.
Overall I would not have skipped doing this, I had a good time and it was an interesting experience. I would do it more often if I could, though they only comp you like $10 a day here.
Whoa, wait I'm not a dumbass. I came in here posting that I'm a full time student who needed to get out of jury duty so it didn't interfere with school and that I had written I was a full time student for why I'd need an exemption or extension but crossed it out because on the paper they said the reasons were for people with disabilities. There wasn't a number to call or anything to ask questions.
So, if anything, I'm just someone who didn't know and is going through this the first time ever. If I knew it would get me an extension to where I would gladly serve it over a break, then this thread wouldn't have been made. I'm not some college chick looking to skip so she can go shopping for shoes or something.
EDIT: Went, got it pushed back and now I have jury duty on my sister's birthday, which isn't really a problem. Thanks for all the tips on how to keep myself busy during jury duty.