f13.net

I've been deferring a jury duty summons for the past two years because it conflicts with my university lectures. This year I've been selected for a time when I'm going to be out of state for my graduation. Unfortunately, I can't defer and my excuse (being out of state) was denied.

Does anyone know what happens when you don't show? It looks like it's a misdemeanor, but I want to know what I'm getting myself into.  http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?Cite=2.36.170

In Pennsylvania they can make you go to court.  If you don't have a good reason for missing jury duty, they can put you in jail for a couple days -which they never do, fine you $50 to $1000, make you pick up trash on the roadside, or some other lame community service rubbish.  I've heard that in some states they charge you if your absence if it caused a delay.  Someone told me they were charged $650 for delays caused by him not showing up in spite of having a good reason for not turning up.

Maybe you could write them a letter explaining why you're not showing up just to have it on file in case they make you go to court?

When I was called for a time I was out of state, they were happy to reschedule for a definite time later.  Being out of state was not an excuse, but the fact I was willing to agree to a specific date 6 weeks later was fine.

Thanks, all. I'm currently writing the judge that oversees this to see about getting another deferment. Of course, because the courts system is still in the Stone Age, I have to snail mail the letter.

It's pretty amazing, the guy that handles the excusals straight up denied me. I told him I spent $1000+ on airfare to get my family to Ohio so we can attend my graduation, of which I've worked my ass off for the past three years. The guy didn't even acknowledge it, his response: "I am unable to postpone this obligation a third time."

Geez. Guy must be a hit at parties.

When you request a deferment, offer a time that you absolutely can serve.  Hard to see anyone getting charged with avoiding jury duty after offering to serve jury duty.

If you've been putting them off for a solid 2 years I can understand why they've lost their patience.  Here they make you reschedule within six months.

It's odd they took deferrals anyways.  Here if you're a full-time student you're completely excused until the next time you're selected.  (And if you're still a student, you can get excused again.)

Pretty much. You cried wolf twice already. You're going to get burned eventually.

I'm going to go with, "You're hosed and they'll put a warrant out for you so don't get a speeding ticket." However I've never been called so I have no experience here.

I'm willing to bet you'll get double burned and be put on a long trial now instead of some low-level case.

Always a ray of sunshine, you guys.  :awesome_for_real:

Lots of good advice in here, much appreciated. I'm going to add my return date to the letter like shiz mentioned; hopefully will appear a bit more sincere. It's weird; they don't excuse students at all in Washington.

Another wierd thing? I was never called once in Ohio, yet both my wife and I were called within six months of moving to Seattle.

Not that I know anything about the internals of the court system, but I'd be mildly surprised if the sheer amount of bureaucracy involved allows that to be anywhere near worth the effort unless someone on the inside is REALLY pissed off.

I didn't mean out of somne deliberate spite. I meant out of dodging karma. She's a bitch, you see.  Luck's run out and now you get double plus bad!

But I'm a positive person like that.

No, they don't excuse students at all in some states. I had to serve on jury duty one week before my PhD defense. Thankfully, jury duty only lasted a couple of days...it'd already taken about six months to schedule my defense, due to frequent travel of two of the panel.

If you can contact the bailiff for the judge directly you may have more luck. Including your availability times after your trip is probably a good plan as well.

King County is tough to get excused a lot of times. I claimed hardship when I was in a pool since the trial was going to go a month plus and I am literally the only person that could do my job (I was going home after court and working several hours on a crisis). I had to ask the judge directly in open court or selection or whatever in order to get out of it. Thankfully he had mercy on me.

It's funny.  I got called, made myself available, and then the whole cycle passed without them actually needing me during my term  :awesome_for_real:

In Houston, at least, being a full-time student OR a parent of a kid under a certain age exempts you. (The latter, I suppose, because most parents either have to pick up, drop off, or otherwise arrange for someone to watch kids under that age so they spend more time excusing parents than actually using them on jury duty).

Last two times I've been down there, I've never gotten past the first step. I suppose that'll change eventually.

The summons usually indicates what to expect if you do not show.  Not to be that guy, but did you read the paper they sent you?

Yep! There's nothing on the summons, but the website states that it's a crime to intentionally not appear as directed (a misdemeanor). When I asked for a deferral, the guy denied me. So I asked him what happens if I don't show, his one-liner was "I can’t give you any legal advice."

My wife is an attorney and she said they'll likely issue a bench warrant, then she'll represent me and explain the circumstances. We're just hoping to avoid all that shit when I can postpone for a few weeks.

Your wife is a lawyer but you are asking the internet for advice?  I know we have a few lawyers here and I assume they are not answering because they can get in trouble for out of state advice plus you are basically asking what will happen if you intentionally break the law.  No one here who actually knows the answer to your question can answer it.

F13 is moving up in the world.

I hadn't chatted with her about it when I did the initial post. I had an hour of rage this morning when the guy denied me and was trying to determine if I should go full-Nerf or not.

Sure, its generally bad to take Internet advice, but the majority of posters here are adults and some people have gone through similar odd things in their lives. This forum is some weird type of litmus test, a W.W.F13.D?. It doesn't mean I'm going to pick the first answer and go with it.

I guess that's my awkward way of saying I like you folks and thanks for the opinions. You all might eat your young and thoroughly enjoy poking bears with sticks, but overall you're a good group of people.

Move to another state under an assumed name. It's the only way.

Here is a list of non extradition countries.   :awesome_for_real:

Afghanistan, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Armenia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bosnia and

Herzegovina, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, the Central

African Republic, Chad, China, Comoros, Congo (Kinshasa), Congo (Brazzaville), Djibouti, Equatorial

Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan,

Kosovo, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Macedonia, Madagascar, Maldives, Mali, Marshall Islands,

Mauritania, Micronesia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal,

Niger, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Rwanda, Samoa, São Tomé & Príncipe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia,

Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu,

Vatican, Vietnam and Yemen.

Jesus, that list. What are my best options, Russia? Maldives and the Marshall islands are pretty, but I'm not cut out for island living. Maybe Vietnam?

 :Love_Letters:

Also, WWF13D needs to become a thing.  Those are always the most entertaining threads around here, by far.

I want that on a shirt.

Don't Do What Donny F13 Does

WWND - What would Nerf Do

We all know he would just burn that mutha fucka down, Pookie.

Madagascar. You will survive the impending plague and be around to repopulate the Earth.  :why_so_serious:

Montenegro is actually really nice.

I feel like Nerf is the embodiment of a Country song rap battle.

If the Caymans nixed extradition, I think embezzling would skyrocket...

I recommend avoiding Vanuatu unless you want to help with rebuilding efforts.  I supposed you could make a personal edition of Survivor:  Hawkbit go Islander

I think jury duty was more interesting than any of my graduations.  Although, Steve Kerr speaking was probably more entertaining than the expert testifying about the meth contents of a baggie.

Whether or not one is selected for an actual jury is not in the hands of those determining who is in the jury pool.

What happens if you turn up and just try and make yourself out to be the most unsuitable juror ever?

I mean, turn up dressed as a Klan member, talking about how you're your own personal Jesus. Claim that the voices in your head prevent you from passing judgement on other humans, that sort of thing? Tell the judge that you think he's a lizard person maybe?

I mean, can they find you in contempt of court for stuff like that? Surely it's easier for them to excuse you rather than have someone there who really doesn't want to be there?

(http://i.imgur.com/0NWwPL9.jpg)

(http://i.imgur.com/iaHJlns.jpg)

(http://i.imgur.com/Fah101X.jpg)

On the first day, when they are doing selections, just tell them your wife is a laywer and that will be the end of that.

Yep, winner.

Amen to that.

I've served on 3 juries in my time and it's always interesting. Yes, it's a hassle and a half for work, but you get some good stories out of it and generally meet some interesting people you'll never ever see again.

But again, tell them your wife is a lawyer, and it's very likely no lawyer will touch you for a jury.

Nope. I used to think that until I was selected to serve on a jury a couple of years ago.

Yeah, I was selected to serve on a jury as a law student.  Thought for sure I'd be dismissed, but nope.  I've heard enough other stories of lawyers being selected as jurors to think that it's not the automatic disqualification it perhaps once was.

Turns out that the case I served on was super interesting, and serving as a juror was an educational and eye-opening experience, so I'm glad it worked out like it did.

I seem to remember you telling us that before.

We've done this.  Or am I in the matrix ?

My jury panel had a doctor on it, though he was excused part way through.

While having a wife as a lawyer reduces the chances you'll be seated as a juror, it does not negate it. 

And as for trying to get out of jury duty by being a jerk - you're rolling the dice.  Sometimes the judge will toss you out to avoid a fuss, but they sometimes go after you hard for it.  I've been called in to sit for jury duty a half dozen times and seen this attempted almost every time by at least one person - the judge called BS on the person trying it and gave them contempt warnings each time.

Besides - Civic Duty.  If your fate were in the hands of a jury, wouldn't you want intelligent people on it?

We're getting older, which means we tell the same stories over and over, forgetting we told them last week.

I probably mentioned at the time.

Jury duty threads pop up fairly regularly.  Enough that I realized what I was about to say and didn't bother typing it out this time.

I would not recommend lying about something that is easily confirmable like your spouse's profession.  What will work, if you are being interviewed for a criminal jury, is tell a story about your childhood when you were on the wrong side of a similar crime.  The only time I ever made it close to a jury I was excused because I said a neighbor had been murdered by a crack addict when I was a kid.  The defendant was on trial for a drug related crime. A neighbor of mine was murdered, but it was by her insane gardener.   The defendant's lawyer excused me in the first round.

I've never been to Jury duty, I don't even know if we have such a thing, but I've been to two graduations, one of them my own, and they were both boring as fuck and a waste of my time.

Man is that ever true. There's no graduation that I've been to where I remember anything anybody said.

Jury duty is pretty harmless, especially in the era of smartphones and e-readers.

Not sure if serious.

Presumably he means the waiting around part.

Yes- I mean fighting off the tedium of sitting in a room waiting for something to happen. If your employer pays you to go, then it is actually a nice little break from work  :grin:

Getting assigned to a long trial would be a drag though.

Not getting paid from work. However, I will make $10.00 per day for serving! :)

I definitely would not have gone to my graduation if not for my daughter. Both she and my wife had to put up with me being somewhat absent for the past three years. I know she'll find it boring as hell, but we want to show her the end result of working towards a goal. It's as much for her and my wife as it is for me. I'm also the first person to graduate with a four-year degree on my side of the family. So there's a bit of excitement around it.

I should get an A in this final capstone class, which puts me graduating with honors, too. Worked my damn ass off. I think I'm going to live on bourbon for a few weeks after I'm finished though.

Can't really blame them for saying no when you used pretty weak excuses twice already.

I just had Jury Duty yesterday at the Compton Courthouse. I just sat in the assembly room the entire time, was never called. The food at the Compton Courthouse is fucking disgusting by the way. I saw it had 1 star on Yelp and was like "what the hell does a star rating for a courthouse even mean?" Then I ate lunch.

At least now I can say that I'm straight out of Compton.

Yeah, I don't really understand how "it conflicts with my lectures" is an excuse for putting it off for a full two years.  You don't get vacations?

The one time I actively ducked out of jury duty it was because the case was expected to go on for the entire summer, and I depended on the income from my summer job to be able to pay tuition for the next two semesters, so I told the judge that serving on this particular jury would basically fuck up my entire life and he agreed to let me out of it.  Since then I haven't ever actually been called in, although I've got a summons for this next week so maybe my streak will finally get broken.

I think in all my life I was called twice but the cases settled before jury selection so I did not wind up having to go either time.

Yep, six weeks a year from school on this program. One week in spring, one at Christmas and four in August. However, I was only on break from school during those periods and still had to work. I typically took a week vacation from work during the summer so our family could do a vacation, but otherwise I worked through my school breaks.

I definitely own the fact that I deferred, no question about it. In hindsight, I should have skipped work and lecture last year and just went. I can't fix the past though, only hope the judge lets me postpone until I'm back in Washington. Otherwise, I have a choice to make.

 :facepalm:  I answered this already. It was a karma comment, not a bureaucrat one.  Petty revenge fantasies should be the 2nd thought at this stage of our lives, kids. Reality fucks us enough that nobody needs to help it.

Anywho, I put dodging jury duty in the same bin as not voting and bitching about taxes being too high because teachers get 2 months off a year.  Just go.

I also used to think that lawyers would always knock a Ph.d off a jury, etc.

Turns out, nope! They'll take what they can get. So I've been seated twice in recent years, both times for what were basically ambulance-chasing civil suits intended as far as I can tell as practice for wet-behind-the-ears newb lawyers hired by their sleazy firms (in both cases the judges were palpably, unmistakeably annoyed to have to even be having a trial).

I'd just like to helpfully chime in that for non-extradition countries Teleku would probably appreciate the company in Russia and Vietnam is very liveable now. There's even a good selection of employment and international schools along with awesome food so fun for the whole family.

The Maldives seem nice but I'm not sure about the possible employment situation, they're pretty much totally tourism and hospitality and I think there's a strong bias towards locals and strong swimmers.

So really I don't now what the fuss is about the jury thing, look on it as a fun and fresh opportunity to travel and explore new regions of the world! Also I've never even gotten a jury summons in the UK while I lived there. I'm not sure if the US has higher proportions of them or something.

As has been stated, depends on the judge.  Some judges will kick you out just to get you out of the way (which means you get to go home at 9AM) and others will force you to stay all day and threaten you with contempt - or actually charge you with it and get you taken away as happened once I saw in San Diego.  Guy REALLY didn't want jury duty apparently and thought he was smarter than the rest.

That said, I've always gotten out of it by stating "I have bills to pay that my employer won't cover and serving on this long trial will jeopardize my chances of meeting court ordered obligations and thus I might have to go to jail."  Haven't been polled for jury duty in several years now though.  California was doing the "call ahead for a week to find out if you show up" thing, so all I had to do was call in every few hours to find out if I had to show up and out of the 5 times I did, only once did I get summoned and then they ended up settling that afternoon so once again off the hook.

I'm not a legal expert but I am an expert in passive-aggressive dickery and screwing people who I feel offended me, and this guy is looking to put the screws to you. Or at least he was at that particular time. He will probably be keeping an eye on what you do like a hawk to teach you a lesson using whatever means he has. He's probably used his bullshit detector to decide that in those two years you had two perfectly valid summer breaks to do your duty and you didn't.

Here in Akron I just got out of local jury duty by telling them I didn't have a reliable sitter and that I might have to bring my 4 year old on some days. You could try that, but that plan has the drawback that you may need to prove you have a 4 year old. I didn't have to and the speed they waived me at I doubt they could have checked unless that info was on whatever roll they use. I'd recommend going up the chain of bureaucracy before you try lying.

I really liked my Federal Grand Jury duty, it was awesome. I learned so much about the worlds of Meth and child porn that I never could have otherwise.

I think I've been sent a summons...once?

It was after I had already moved out to DC for my job, so it was pretty simple to explain that my NJ address is just my legal domicile and I don't ordinarily reside there (it's my parents' house) - I don't believe I've been summoned since...assuming my parents are opening any official-looking mail addressed to me. :oh_i_see:

fakeedit: Also, with the number of times I've gone in and out of the country (and would have been stopped if there was a warrant), and my record being constantly monitored for my security clearance, I can only assume NJ hasn't particularly minded my non-availability.

I believe Georgia uses a last-in, first-out rule since the same happened to me right after I moved here but I haven't been called since.

I'm not sure about the UK, but the whole 'jury of peers' thing certainly isn't as common in a lot of Europe. Many countries have all but eliminated the system.
Belgium, where I'm at being an exception. They still love it for some reason (can't say I'm a fan myself).

For those that are curious, there are a lot of articles online about jury selection.  Some of them address why attorneys, doctors, and other 'smart' people are, or are not, excused.

For those that want a more realistic explanation as to why jury selection seems to be so random at times: There are a lot of really bad attorneys out there - horrible ones. 

Written request denied. Looks like I'm going to become part of the court system, but on the other side! :)

As in all things government, the guy who denied my initial request told me to snail mail the judge. However, the written request was signed by the guy who denied me, not the judge. Cockgoblins, all the way down.

You'd get more sympathy from this den of assholes if you hadn't admitted to cockblocking the court for two years.

As such, SWIM IN YOUR LIES!  :why_so_serious:

No offense but there's some slight horseshit in there. I would assume that the end goal you were working towards by going back to school was not to attend a graduation ceremony, and there are better ways to show your daughter the value of getting an education. Also if you want to teach her a life lesson here, you could always teach her that when you have responsibilities you should take care of them even when it's not convenient for you.

f13: it's whatever the exact opposite of a hugbox is.    :why_so_serious:

A hugbox with barbed wire.

...and razor blades.

I vote for Maulbox

Maulings are like hugs from angry bears.  :awesome_for_real:

Ooooh, this is good.  Do this.

Whew. Luckily the judge wrote a following letter that grants a deferral for another year. I set the makeup date for the week after we get back, so all worked out. The judge actually wrote a very nice letter that congratulated me on finishing school.

I always thought they should go with a simpler solution: Anyone can defer any time they want with no reason required. 

Deferrals would cost $10 for a one week deferral, $20 for two weeks, $30 for up to a month, $40 for up to two months, and $20 for each additional two months in the deferral.  Defer for a year for $140.  People serving on a jury get paid out of the proceeds from deferral pay.

So people with money can defer and people that don't have money to spare are fucked? I don't find this to be a fair plan on first glance. Maybe I misinterpreted how poor your poor people are, but I remember reading getting paper id is an election hurdle for them because they can't afford a paper id?

That's not a good idea.

To each their own.

Unless you're just wrong, in which case, I bet there's some MCU news to be tracked down.

Jury duty is already stacked against the poor.

Actually its not because poor people have a fairly lousy rate of voter registration or DMV registration participation that generate the pool. Richer folks also tend to show up at a higher rate when summoned.  Juries are older, whiter, richer, and more likely to be government workers or retired as compared to both the population and wildly different compared to the defendant pool.

I just meant more in the fact that miiddle and upper class usually gets paid from their work for time on Jury duty, while poor is usually hourly workers who are forced not to work those days for a measly $15 a day.