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I Forgot to Send My Juror Qualification Form
Cognisseur
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Am I going to get raped? 
I got Jury Duty summons a while back for tomorrow morning. Since I always exempted out of jury duty I didn't realize there was a form I had to send even if I was planning to show up. I called the office after 5pm and the recorded message says all jurors have to come in.
So what happens now? Should I fill it out and bring it in with me? Not show up at all? Pretend I mailed it in?
I got Jury Duty summons a while back for tomorrow morning. Since I always exempted out of jury duty I didn't realize there was a form I had to send even if I was planning to show up. I called the office after 5pm and the recorded message says all jurors have to come in.
So what happens now? Should I fill it out and bring it in with me? Not show up at all? Pretend I mailed it in?
Cognisseur on
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I would fill it in and bring it with you.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Funny, it's having to show up that makes me mad :P
So, I'm told I can't just come in and be like "I hate Blacks, thank you very much ladies and gentleman, I'll show myself out". Why is that? There are enough racists in USA that it seems believable? Am I going to have to be subtle about why I'm incompetent?
Nah, just go there with it. I'm sure people do it all the time.
It's not a bitchy thing to say, but I'll pass nonetheless. I generally live my life to maximize my own happiness and those of the people I know and love. Wasting days in jury duty helps neither directly. So the only gain I get from not fucking up jury selection is a feeling of being a Good Boy and a Good Citizen. For some people, likely for you, that's enough incentive to do it. However, I get more pleasure from sleeping in or getting paid at work.
A lawyer friend of mine says that saying, "I am inclined to believe a police officer over the defendant" is usually enough to make sure you aren't selected.
My mother's approach to getting out of jury duty is to ask a lot of questions.
Would saying the reverse guarantee I won't get selected? Cuz it's not illegal to hate cops after all...
The reverse would work just as well... the point being you don't get selected because you show bias.
gl convincing the judge that you are prejudiced against cops.
this is how it will go:
[Setting - a stuffy court room full of 150 people who live near you possibly including friends and acquaintances along with at least 3 local police officers.]
Judge: does anyone here have any relationship with a law enforcement officer that prevents them from serving as a fair and impartial juror?
You: Yes sir, I hate cops
Judge: If I told you to disregard your feelings, would you follow the orders of the court?
You: Nope, I can't be swayed from my hatred of police officers and anyone that they falsly prosecute.
Judge: Please approach the bench (this is where you get to explain in detail how your prejudice came about and why you won't disregard it)
all the while, noone has anything better to do than watch you convince the judge that you are prejudiced.
long story short: just go and hope you don't get selected. if you do get selected, it will probably be for a DUI charge. if you do get selected, there is only about a 50% chance that the case will go to trial.
You serve on a jury because if you were being tried of a crime, how would you feel if the only people who ended up on your jury are the ones who aren't bright enough to lie their way out of it?
You also serve because you're under oath when you're up there, and if the judge thinks you're perjuring yourself, you're not going to have a good time.
Oh don't worry, I have no shame. I can go into exquisite detail about why I despise cops. I can sit there and cite cases I've been reading up of cop abuse of power until the judge shuts me the fuck up. Hell, I can be so convincing every other juror will have to admit they're biased against cops now. A few local cops might even resign out of disgust.
Uh, if I was being tried for a crime I'm pretty sure I'd know the only people on the jury were those too dumb not to get out of it and those too goody-to-shoes to realize they should've gotten out of it.
And I'm not talking about perjury here. There are countless reasons I'd make a terrible juror... I just want to know which of them is the most pertinent to the judge.
you have a better than 50% chance of not even being chosen and a better than 50% chance of if you are going, not having to go to trial. theres also a 90% chance that if you are selected and the case goes to trial that it will only last 1 day.
you are better off just going.
Actually, it gets better. I'm about to enter graduate school so next time I get a letter, I get to defer jury duty for 5 years. It's pretty sweet.
But lying in court to avoid jury duty is not very smart, and very self-serving. by not going to jury duty you ensure that the dumb people who are more likely to be convinced by poor arguments and faulty logic get picked. when this happens it screw up the justice system, and if you can't see why that's important i'm disappointed. Nobody who knows me in real life will accuse me of being dumb or a "goody two-shoes," and i am fairly cynical when it comes to the government, but damn, be a little less selfish.
edited out some unnecessary hostility, not trying to start a fight
As has been mentioned before, anyone could be on trial someday. I know that if I were on trial, I'd like to have a jury that took their job seriously.
However, if you honestly do have any biases, you should be honest about them. If they're relevant to the case at hand, one side or the other will probably dismiss you.
If it's a drug case, and you think drugs should be legal, say so. Maybe use the phrase "jury nullification" a few times, and watch the DA stumble over himself to get you off the jury as quickly as possible.
I've been on one jury. It really wasn't bad. Of course, I was in law school at the time, so I found the whole process pretty interesting.
Shirking jury duty and then complaining about other people trying to ignore their civic duty is pretty low. What's even worse is that those guys are at least trying to protect America the only way they know how. You're just trying to be a lazy git who can't understand why everyone else is so incompetent.
Judging from your posts, you'd have no problem telling the truth and not being chosen.
And depending on where you are, just getting dismissed from a trial during voir dire may not be enough to fulfill your jury duty.
Actually, in most states, they'll have you reschedule your jury duty for a holiday or summer when you have time to serve.
-shrug- When I was an undergrad and got jury summons they postponed until I graduated. I figure they'll do the same for grad school.
And I do know what makes a bad juror. A person who is biased regarding guilt because of his dislike for police and most of the laws that people get committed for. The fact that I zone out after more than like 20 seconds of listening to things that bore me won't help either unless they opt to give me a written record of the entire session.