How to Get Out of Jury Duty
One of my friends has been asked to be on a jury multiple times in the last few years (I don’t know the exact details) and was wondering how she could potentially be legitimately excused. Turns out, it’s not as difficult as it sounds (neither is fulfilling your duty, as most people don’t get selected for juries).
Rule #1: Never lie. Don’t be a fool, the odds say you’ll just have to sit in a room and waste a day watching news, don’t make things worse by lying. Plus, most places will let you bring a computer into that waiting room so bring one or a book or something semi-productive to do instead of watch TV. It’s not that bad, plus you get lunch.
So, still want out?
Exclusion Rules
Each jurisdiction has its own rules for exclusion (here is a list of links to all the Jury Plans for counties in Maryland), and in Baltimore City, where my friend lives, the potential exemptions are:
- aged 70+,
- elected official of the federal legislative branch,
- active military, or,
- organized militia.
There are also potential disqualifications (the potential pool is taken from voter registration, MD Driver’s Licenses, and MD ID cards):
- not a US Citizen,
- not an adult (less than 18),
- not a City resident,
- cannot comprehend spoken English or cannot speak English,
- cannot comprehend written English, read English, or write English well enough to fill out forms,
- disabled with documentation by a health care provider,
- convicted of a crime and imprisoned for more than 6 months (w/o pardon),
- pending criminal charge with the potential for a sentance of 6 months+,
- dead.
Other Tactics
If none of those exclusions or disqualifications is true, there are other ways to try to get out of jury duty (or at least avoid being selected).
Economic Hardship: In some jurisdictions, you can be excluded from jury duty if you can show economic hardship using proof of employment, wages and tax returns. If you own and operate a business or derive a significant amount of your income as a contractor, you could claim that you are losing income by virtue of not working. It’s harder for those on a salary but you could show how closely your income is to the your expenses and try to convince the judge that way.
Change of Date: Request a change of date if you are sick, going out of town (vacation, anyone?), have children and can’t get daycare, or some other compelling reason. If you can’t get out of it, at least try to get it rescheduled at a time that’s a little more convenient for you. Some sites recommend postponing it until December, when trials are more likely to be delayed or moved.
Act Smart: I don’t like the advice of some to pretend to have preconceived or racist notions in an attempt to get disqualified, but I do like the idea of acting smart or analytical. Lawyers like people they can persuade and people who are too attached to the facts and not easily persuaded are dangerous to both sides.
Jury Veto: This is sort of the nuclear option… a jury veto (also known as ‘jury nullification of law’) is where you can vote guilty/not guilty on the basis of your belief that a law is wrong or improperly applied. So the person could be guilty of the crime in your mind but you could vote not guilty on grounds of jury nullification. Neither the defense nor the prosecution will tell you about this right, as they don’t want you to know, but if you mention it you will probably get excused.
Some more resources:
- Mental Floss’ How to Get Out of Jury Duty
- Wicked HowTo’s How To Get Out Of Jury Duty: My Story, How I Did It.
- Ask Men’s How To Get Out of Jury Duty
Hope those tips help!
(Photo: jasonunbound)
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There are 24 comments, add your thoughts now!
I wish I could get Jury Duty, but I never get it
We should all try NOT to get out of jury duty. If I was on trial I would want people like me, you and other readers on that jury.
“Getting out of jury duty is easy. The trick is to say you’re prejudiced against all races.”
-Homer Simpson
I would actually like to do jury duty, however, I know that I will not, because I do believe in jury veto and will not lie about it if asked.
Now, on no occasion that I have been summoned have I been selected, but in watching the selection process, I noted that every juror was asked about jury veto (in a roundabout way) by the participating lawyers. The question asked in the voir dire was usually along the lines of, “Do you believe that you can judge the case solely on the basis of the facts and the law, and not on your opinion of whether or not the law is right or just?” If I were ever asked that question, I would have to answer “no”.
I do not get why people try to shirk jury duty. Do they really want to leave guilt and innocence to a group of professional jurors? Can anyone suggest a system better than what we have?
Not everyone wants to avoid jury duty, but I would say that the vast majority want to avoid it because it takes a lot of time, primarily from your job. Very few people can stop what they’re doing for a few days without it having an impact on their work.
1) Jury Duty is just that, a duty you owe due to the great many privledges and rights you enjoy as an American citizen. Almost every jury system allows for one to defer at least once (and often two or three times) before having to serve. Plus, the vast majority of cases will only take, at most, a few days of time. Moreover, most people called for duty do not actually serve at all, but are excused after the first or second day. Some jurisdictions even have a nightly phone-in/email-in service to see if you need to actually show up or not (and, more often than not, after two days of calling you you’ll be excused).
2) Jury Nullification is not a right and, actually, illegal. Theoretically, you could face contempt or worse by doing such. You get a judge with a strong opinion on the matter, mentioning it could cause you discomfort (in the pocketbook or worse). Don’t attempt it.
3) All that being said, being honest, and talking a lot, will likely get you booted by one side or another based on your answers. They, not you, however, are deciding, based on their client, whether you should serve. Showing up and being called for a panel fulfills your duty, not necessarily serving.
If you really need to get out of jury duty just grab a tshirt and magic marker. Write “give him the chair” on it. You’ll be excused and won’t have to say a thing.
I second Mase’s comments. No one likes it, but it is your duty….hence the word jury DUTY. We are lucky to live in a country where we have the option to be judged by a jury…why leave it to those to dumb to get out of jury duty to decide your fate? Serve and help make the system work.
Mase, from where are you basing your assertion that jury nullification is illegal?
Well said, Mase!
Jury null might be illegal if intent can be proven. ? Like if you told your pals that you were going to pull jury null prior to doing it??
Idea for another column: how to vote more than once in an election.
I would never be willing to serve on a jury, and I think that alone should excuse me, as a supposedly free citizen. I have been called, but was not required to appear. I made every effort to get out of it as soon as I received the notice, to no avail, but was relieved that I didn’t have to go. The truth is that I am entirely unwilling to visit a courtroom, much less judge someone based on performances by the lawyers. If I didn’t see the crime committed, I must find the accused innocent. The waste, corruption and human suffering within that system disgusts me.
“He looks like the man that I caught sleeping with my wife!!”
saladdin
> Jury Duty is just that,
> a duty you owe due to the
> great many privledges and rights
> you enjoy as an American citizen.
Interesting…because I was under the impression that I pay for these privileges and rights through my taxes?
If it’s not a financial hardship I highly recommend it. I served on a 3 week jury trial last year and it was a great experience I will never forget. Getting picked can be boring but once you’ re on a trial it gets interesting. The fascinating part of it was seeing 12 strangers from different towns and walks of life come together as a jury to decide a case. It really opened my eyes seeing all the different backgrounds and attitudes. The challenge for us was getting some jurors to decide the case on facts and let go of their personal bias. In those 3 weeks we became a close group and learned to respect our differences. It is a humbling and fascinating experience. You will be a better person after serving on a trial. Don’t miss the experience just so you can ‘work’.
Not long ago I was called for a jury pool. The standard questions pretty much made me an undesirable juror and I was kicked out by one of the parties (I don’t know which one).
My job and my education are grossly mismatched and I think neither side wanted me as a juror.
I got a notice a couple weeks ago that I will be in next month’s jury pool. I think it will be an interesting experience, and don’t mind if I get selected. Granted, I don’t want to be on a 6 month murder trial, but I certainly think it is part of my duty and could be very interesting.
Below is some language from US v. Thomas, 116 F.3d 606, 615-616 (2d Cir. 1997):
As courts have long recognized, several features of our jury trial system act to protect the jury’s power to acquit, regardless of the evidence, when the prosecution’s case meets with the jury’s “moral[] disapprov[al].” Since the famous opinion in Bushell’s Case , 124 Eng. Rep. 1006 (C.P. 1670), freeing a member of the jury arrested for voting to acquit William Penn against the weight of the evidence, nullifying jurors have been protected from being called to account for their verdicts. Moreover, and in addition to the courts’ duty to safeguard the secrecy of the jury deliberation room (discussed in greater detail below), the several rules protecting the unassailability of jury verdicts of acquittal–even where these verdicts are inconsistent with other verdicts rendered by the same jury in the same case, United States v. Carbone , 378 F.2d 420, 423 (2d Cir.) (Friendly, J. ) (recognizing link between upholding inconsistent verdicts and protecting juries’ power of lenity), cert. denied , 389 U.S. 914 (1967)–serve to “permit[] juries to acquit out of compassion or compromise or because of their assumption of a power which they had no right to exercise, but to which they were disposed through lenity.” Standefer v. United States , 447 U.S. 10, 22 (1980) (internal quotation marks omitted).
But as the quotation from the Supreme Court’s opinion in Standefer indicates, in language originally employed by Judge Learned Hand, the power of juries to “nullify” or exercise a power of lenity is just that–a power; it is by no means a right or something that a judge should encourage or permit if it is within his authority to prevent. Indeed, although nullification has a long history in the Anglo-American legal system, see Dougherty , 473 F.2d at 1130-33; Farnham, supra , at 4, and the federal courts have long noted the de facto power of a jury to render general verdicts “in the teeth of both law and facts,” Horning v. District of Columbia , 254 U.S. 135, 138 (1920); see, e.g. , United States v. Trujillo , 714 F.2d 102, 105-06 (11th Cir. 1983), courts have consistently recognized that jurors have no right to nullify. See, e.g. , United States v. Kerley , 838 F.2d 932, 938 (7th Cir. 1988) (”[J]ury nullification is just a power, not also a right . . . .”); see also Sparf v. United States , 156 U.S. 51, 102 (1895) (holding that, while juries are finders of fact, “it is the duty of juries in criminal cases to take the law from the court and apply that law to the facts as they find them”). As a panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit–composed of Chief Judge Spottswood W. Robinson, III, Judge George E. MacKinnon, and then-Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg–explained:
A jury has no more ” right ” to find a “guilty” defendant “not guilty” than it has to find a “not guilty” defendant “guilty,” and the fact that the former cannot be corrected by a court, while the latter can be, does not create a right out of the power to misapply the law. Such verdicts are lawless, a denial of due process and constitute an exercise of erroneously seized power.
United States v. Washington , 705 F.2d 489, 494 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (per curiam) (emphasis in original). Indeed, as we noted above, the exercise of this de facto power is a violation of a juror’s sworn duty to “apply the law as interpreted by the court.” United States v. Boardman , 419 F.2d 110, 116 (1st Cir. 1969), cert. denied , 397 U.S. 991 (1970). [9]
FN9. Accordingly, criminal defendants have no right to a jury instruction alerting jurors to this power to act in contravention of their duty. See United States v. Edwards, 101 F.3d 17, 19-20 (2d Cir.1996) (citing cases); see also United States v. Sepulveda, 15 F.3d 1161, 1190 (1st Cir.1993), cert. denied, 512 U.S. 1223, 114 S.Ct. 2714, 129 L.Ed.2d 840 (1994); Dougherty, 473 F.2d at 1136-37. As the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recognized, to instruct on nullification “would … undermine[ ] the impartial determination of justice based on law.” United States v. Krzyske, 836 F.2d 1013, 1021 (6th Cir.) (finding no error in court’s response to jury inquiry on nullification that included the admonition to the jury: “You would violate your oath and the law if you willfully brought in a verdict contrary to the law given you in this case.”), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 832, 109 S.Ct. 89, 102 L.Ed.2d 65 (1988).
I had jury duty several years ago, and it was a really good experience, interesting to see the system operating from the inside. If you have a chance to do it, I would suggest giving it a shot - you’ll get a real good feeling of knowing that you’re doing your civic duty.
Depending upon the case you get - you may not be able to get over some of the things you see or hear though. I was on a jury for a child abuse case. Very sad to see pictures of a little girl who was beaten by her dad, and then to hear her describe it. We found the guy guilty. Strange thing was that I saw the same man working at a restaurant that i was eating at - several months later. Not sure if he saw me or recognized me.
My dad was on a jury once for a murder trial where someone was bludgeoned to death. That one was even more graphic.
My advice? It may not be easy or fun, but do your civic duty!
I never once went to jury duty. Every year since I turned 18, I got the letter and ignored it, and EVERY year since my parents would tell me I better not ignore it because I will get in trouble. I no longer live with my parents of course and they still manage to find the jury duty letter on my counter that I left ignored and still give me the same lecture. Almost 20 years I’ve ignored jury duty and no repercussions. As stupid as it sounds, I just wanted to see if being fined or be sent to jail was a urban legend. So far it seems to be. Take whatever I said however you feel, but the fact remains.
@kenneth I think it depends upon where you are, but my husband and I were forced to go to court because he did not respond to an original summons. We didn’t get fined or imprisoned, but others did get fined. We’re in Northern California. Our summons claims there is no way out, and you have to call a phone number to see if your presence is required. We’ve never had to go, other than the time my husband failed to do something. I’ve never heard of being imprisoned for not responding or doing jury duty. We’ve been sent summons 6 or 7 times between us.
I actually would like to perform jury duty, but I think many defense lawyers for criminal cases would not like my super high level education.
(Yes, I’ve been through jury selection.)
Talking a lot and expressing your strong prejudices may NOT work to your advantage, especially if you annoy the judge. DO NOT ANNOY THE JUDGE. This also goes for trying to avoid jury duty altogether: Make sure you do not annoy the civil servants of a courthouse. It’s just not worth the potential pain they can wreck upon your life.
In the jury selection that I was in, several potential jurors expressed strong prejudices that would not allow them to assess in an unbiased way the truth of a cop’s testimony versus the truth of an alleged gang member’s. The judge asked the potential jurors if they could reasonably set aside their personal prejudices in order to assess the truth and honesty of testimonies in the trial. Obviously trying to get out of this criminal trial, these jurors insisted that they could not. Instead of releasing them, the judge re-assigned them directly to a civil courthouse. Ooooops!
I actually think I’d enjoy jury duty as long as it doesn’t take a ton of time (a week), I don’t mind performing my civic duty but some people have the bad luck of being selected each time they go ever few years.
Do you really want me on jury duty? I worked for the IRS so I know what morons are employed there making decisions that ruin peoples financial lives. The DEA is out of control, they don’t do what they are supposed to, the FBI is OK, the whole government is corrupt. Police lie, not just about blacks, but whites, latin, and asian. D.A.s lie, judges are human and many are corrupt and power hungry. Our legal system is severely broken. Look Mr. DA you don’t want me on the jury, civic duty or not. If you are a defense attorney, pick me!! peick me!!
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