Of course I would get summoned for jury duty during the last year I’m planning to be a permanent resident here in Ohio. I received the initial summons last week and immediately wrote a letter attempting to be excluded from service as I am a sole proprietor (and that is one of the valid reasons for being excused). Unfortunately, the jury commissioner did not agree with me, but did reschedule me for the week of June 29th. That’s only a 4-day week due to Independence Day Observed on Friday. I only need to report for one week, or through one trial, if selected. I guess that’s not so bad. I just can’t schedule anything that week during the day because I won’t know if and when I’ll be released. I will be paid $20 per day of service…
While the monetary impact is troubling, I’m more concerned that I’ll actually be selected as a juror. Trials, for me, are boring. Being a juror is an awesome responsibility; I don’t want to shortchange anyone because I’m restless. I’ve represented clients at many trials (always bench trials, never with a jury), but the process is basically the same. Each side needs to present evidence. It can take forever. Multiple witnesses tend to testify to the same thing. My favorite objection is: relevance? Witnesses, due to attorney questions, tend to go off on tangents that have no bearing on the case. Which makes the trial longer. And more boring. And, to top it all off, there is NO gavel banging, unlike every single court show on television.
Being forced to take four days off might actually be a great time to study for the Hawaii Bar Exam. I need to decide, soon, if I should take it this Summer. The application is due by April 1.
Jury Duty is awesome. I wish I could be picked for exciting little adventure. Haha
BSR
You should not try to get out of jury duty! One of the major problems in our judicial system in my view is that most citizens with any education or employment immediately set about disqualifying themselves from jury duty. The people that are left are often far from a representative sample of the defendant’s peers and often are literally incapable of understanding what is going on in the trial (no offense meant - it’s complicated stuff!).
Sure it would suck to get pulled into a 6 month trial, but the vast majority of cases are days long, or maybe a few weeks tops.
It is an important responsibility. Since they won’t let me out of it, I don’t intend to try any “tricks” so I don’t get picked to sit on a jury. It does, unfortunately, directly affect my bottom line: no work = no pay.