July has been taken away.........

something to really look forward to is getting a summons for selection of a federal jury. it's more rare, since the pool they draw from is large, but unless you live in a very large city, chances are you'll be driving out of town to wherever the federal building is for your district.

That happened to me two years ago. My wife got called for Jury Duty. She wound up taking her own car and left the trip early to go to Jury Duty.

This year she received an invitation to her cousin's bridal shower right in the middle of August. I had already made camping reservations last year. Told my wife to enjoy the bridal shower while I'm camping.

Not sure if this still holds true, but when I lived in Hancock County, MS, the court allowed you to send someone in your place. They didn't care who showed up as long as they had a potential juror for the pool.

Ah, another benefit for living past 70, in California at least. If you don't want to serve, just use the age card.

I used to get a summons every year and get on at least one jury, then I became the expert witness of choice for the City Attorneys Office in cases involving Traffic Signals. I still got the summons but never chosen for a jury after that. Now I declined to serve due to age and haven't gotten a summons in four years.

When they screen you, ask if you can have a couple of free tickets to the execution for your kids. You will get rejected.

We understand that it might have been possible to reschedule. We did not have any specific plans.....yet. But now we have no choices. We live in Idaho, Ada county and have heard many stories of how uncaring they can be. We personally know a gal who at the time of her summons was nursing an infant. The judge threatened her with jail time if she did not serve.

BTPO1 wrote:

downtheroad wrote:


Let's suppose you were getting married and had invited 300 people to a $75,000 wedding, or had a non-refundable airline tickets to Tahiti? Would they make you miss that? I doubt it.

Not always true, my DW got summoned for a trial at a time that the DD was graduating from college. Had purchased tickets for the family to fly cross country to attend. The judge said that was not a good enough reason to be excused. After filling out a 50 page questionnaire she was excused.

Interesting...are you in WA? Maybe it is an individual county thing.
All I have ever had to do to reschedule is go on line (they give you a website) and request a new date (3 month window).

No questionnaire, only about 2 drop down menu boxes to fill out and "submit."

As others have said, call the court clerk and ask them to reschedule. Every court I've dealt with has been very flexible with potential jurors. There are only specific circumstances where you can get out of jury duty entirely, but rescheduling is not a big deal. Don't volunteer any specifics unless asked, and only be as specific as you need to be, although you don't want to sound evasive.

In other words, when you call, tell the clerk you have a conflict for that time and ask if you can reschedule. If the clerk asks what the conflict is, say that it's a family issue; etc. I think you get the point. Don't come out of the gates and say that jury duty is inconvenient because you have a vacation scheduled.

Some of you people need to move to a better part of the country.
There's a difference in getting off of the list and getting out of jury duty once called.

goducks10 wrote:
Just go on vacation and leave the phone turned off. They over book anyway so if they have no shows they are covered.

Great idea! Except for the fact that they issue a bench warrant for no-show. Depending on how you explain your absence, you might simply get to reschedule. You might get a 30 day jail sentence. Just call ahead and get it rescheduled.