It happens anyway. Ironically you can’t do anything about it without using a lawyer and courts. It should automatically happen. If you get brought in on jury duty, they should check up on you to make sure your employer didn’t fuck around, and automatically take enforcement action if they did.
Both times I’ve been on salary and I was paid, but in the first case the compensation was literally calculated to be 2x of standard public trans fare + transfer to cover getting to and from the courthouse but nothing more and that like 11 dollars at the time was claimed by my employer which also made me laugh.
I’m hoping they call me up. I got the survey a couple months ago, but then haven’t heard anything back.
I could use a low-key vacation. Catch up on my Steam backlog and watch a bunch of anime.
I have to report for jury duty on the 25th (its a Tuesday so already I feel like There will be less cases starting vs monday) and technically I shouldn’t even have to go because I was selected for a case within the last 3 years. I do not yet have a Switch and wish I did for instances like this.
Also adding to the shenanigans is I think I will probably have to tweet at the philacourts twitter account because the phone system has been down for 3 weeks due to unspecified malware thats “totally not ransomware encryption” according to the Philly courts spokesperson, but they refuse to name the security firm that is helping them resolve the issue.
Rumor/induction is that the Baltimore courts emailed the Philly courts system and infected it but Philly IT was able to section off the system before it contaminated the rest of Philly gov’t systems.
I imagine judges love to nail companies (or anyone, really) who try to violate the rights of jurors, seeing as it’s fundamental to our court system.
How does it work in your state?
In MA:
- Receive postcard-sized summons, which has a court and date. You must acknowledge acceptance, either return postcard or website. When do you acknowledge, you’re allowed to pick a deferral date, sometime in the next year or so. They will always accept this first deferment. You can also claim location hardship and switch courts—I did this once when I didn’t have a car, and got moved to a T-accessible court. You can give them your email if you want to opt out of physical mail notifications, which is pretty convenient.
- Followup postcard with your new details.
- A few weeks beforehand, receive a questionnaire with questions about your race, occupation, whether you have law enforcement in your family, etc. This is for you to bring day of, which is furnished to the judge and lawyers but is otherwise private.
- Get an email the day before confirming your attendance or not.
- Show up, deliver questionnaire, sit in room waiting for impanelment.
- Get shuffled in a courtroom for impanelment zero or more times until impaneled or dismissed.
- “One day or one trial.” Showing up means you can reject juror service for the next three years.
MA seems on top of the juror-managing logistics. I was pretty impressed.
I pulled that from what you get for Federal jury duty, I’m not surprised local government is worse.
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Oh, I remembered the specific reason I was removed as a juror once that I forgot to mention.
They asked me if I would trust the testimony of a police officer over a general member of the public. I said no, and was immediately removed.
I don’t remember what the case was actually about.
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Solution: jury swoleification. The wait room is a weight room. Get jacked and perform your civic duty at the same time.
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Man, Philly courts went out of their way to send me a paper letter responding to my jury survey claiming my jury duty was only 2 day and thus I was only exempt for 2 years (The rule is 3 years if you server on a trail) and stated I am basically required for my pool date (vs the normal call in to find out the night before).
I have yet to be summoned for Jury duty in the last 15 years, which is funny cause I want to serve on a Jury. Last time I got a notificaiton I was in College…
I keep filling out the survey in New York, but I haven’t been called in in a looooooong time.
What is “the survey”? It happens before you’re summoned?
In NY at least you will occasional receive a juror questionnaire in the mail. You are required to fill them out and send them in. They use it to determine if you are an eligible juror. Maybe they don’t do it where you live?
Here is one I foudn online from West Virginia
https://www.wvsd.uscourts.gov/juror-qualification-questionnaire-faqs
When you get it in the mail, it’s usually a sign that jury duty is not far off.
In MA, you receive a juror summons, and it’s your job to convince them you’re ineligible, need a deferment, etc.
We also receive those. The questionnaires just comes first. It only weeds out the obviously ineligible people. The questions are very broad. You can’t write random stuff on it, just bubbles and such. You would have to commit some undeniable perjury on this thing to try to get out of jury duty. Better to wait for the summons to try shenanigans.
Man, I never realized how… not stupid the “One day or One trial” system was compared to some other places.
(TBF, I’ve only ever lived in Massachusetts whilst sentient)
Yes the survey is questions like “are you a US citizen”, “Do you speak english as a primary language”, “have you been convicted of a felony”, “is this your current address?”
I knew about Jury Nullification, but I have a funny feeling it gets you put on other lists.
My one Jury duty experience was rather painless, I was a student though… Not many obligations. My professor even thought it would be useful for me.