Jury duty?? How do I get out of this??

Question

My life is in such a place that I have no way of attending jury duty. I was just called to the United States District Court, help!!
I have a job, three kids, and I am attending school. My husband works an hour away and can't be asked to watch the kids because we need his income as well as mine. Are there any ideas of how to avoid duty?? Please help??

Answer 1

Say you're prejudiced against all races. ;)

Answer 2

First of all your chances of being impanelled is slim. You probably will have to call a phone number to see if you really have to go. If the instructions say yes, by all means go. Once there, again, many cases are settled out of court at the last minute and you still may not be impanneled. If you are so unlucky as to actually get asked questions to be impanneled. you can tell the judge of your circumstances, or you can say, "Your Honor, my back has been hurting me lately. Can I be allowed to stand up when I need to during this trial?" It worked for me.
However, understand that your employer MUST give you the day off. It's the law. And also, once you get called up for jury duty, you will get called back more often the next year. So maybe it's worth it to you to serve and get it over with.
Hope this helps.

Answer 3

You'll have to go for one day. You tell them your situation and they'll let you off. Don't beg and plead and panic. Just calmly tell them everything that's going on and they'll let you off. Its when you beg and plead that they stonewall you and don't give you a pass. I would assume you have a sitter or daycare for your kids if you have a job and school, pay them extra to stay a few more hours for the day you go.

Its a civic duty that everyone has to do, but there are more than enough jobless or part-timers to fill the jury boxes, they won't want someone with as many comitments as you.

Answer 4

Let's not get to romantic on this. Jury duty requests do not come registered mail hence forth you can ignore them. Unless you signed for it or called in the automated system than you are screwed. Most I can say is when interviewed make youserlf look bad.

Answer 5

You can always get out of it once. Even if you go to court, you may well be released after an hour or two; and if you don't show up on any particular day nothing will happen except you will be docked that day's pay.

My experience.

State court jury service may be different, but I doubt it. Except that they don't pay as well.

Answer 6

Do your civic duty to the best of your abillity. This is why we have the system set up in the way we do. So that is fair and impartial. This is your duty as an American. What if it was you on trial (innocent and wrongly accused of course) and you did not get a fair representation of your community because the citizens in your community did not want to participate? If we only took the people in for Jury Duty who wanted to go, we would not have an impartial pool of jurors to select from, we would only have haters who want to send everyone to jail or huggers who want everyone to be let off or hung jurys all over the country because they would not be able to decide guilt or innocence.

Answer 7

If you have a health problem, they'll let you off. My aunt's diabetic & has to eat at certain times, which would sorta impede jury functioning, so she got off because of it. And my mom's got lung problems which make her cough a lot, which would disrupt the court, so she got out of it.

Answer 8

you will probably have to appear but you can claim a hardship and the judge will give you a pass. You just need to explain your situation to the judge.

Answer 9

fake bieng rasict or that you have a predetermined idea of how the case will turn out. your kids, jobs and school should keep you out but i dont know.

Answer 10

being a student will get your duty postponed. and then you should do it. it is your american duty to serve jury duty. you should go for it!

Answer 11

Depends what you will be called to judge. Let them know you are prejudice, they hate that.