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Have you ever been summoned for Jury Duty in either the US & Canada? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by LtDan@lemmy.zip to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I know that Jury Duty is mandatory in both nations (USA all 50 states / Canada all 13 provinces) meaning citizens have to show up in person when they receive the "dreaded letter" via the mail telling them the date / time and court in which they have to attend, excusals exist if you manage to plead your reasoning for excusal with evidence.

I mean, have you received a summons from the court saying you've been chosen as a juror? There are penalities on failing to attend. If you were selected on being part of the jury, what is the experience like and how much are you paid? If you weren't selected on being part of the jury that time, is there a chance you can be summoned again at any given moment?

Neurodivergent people (i.e. Autism, ADHD, dyslexia) who have received the summons can plead their reasoning as to why they aren't eligible to be a juror only if they have medical evidence (diagnosis of their condition, psych report, doctors letter, medical certificate) explaining why their condition makes them unable to serve & etc.

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[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I was summoned three times in a month, and then haven’t gotten another one since then. Normally the triple summons wouldn’t be possible, because each summons has an exemption for if you were recently summoned and got rejected during voir dire… But I was summoned first at the city level, then the county level, then the city level again. And the exemption didn’t apply at the city level.

Basically, the city summoned me. I showed up. And then the city went “oh actually, every single case we had scheduled today went to a plea bargain. So we’re not going to do voir dire, because we don’t have any cases. You can just go home.”

The next week, I had the county summon. I showed up, went through voir dire, and got rejected because I wasn’t afraid to talk. Fun fact, most of the time during voir dire, the people who get picked are the ones who just quietly sit there. Knowing more about you makes it more likely for one side or the other to reject you.

The third week, I got called back to the city court. Since we hadn’t done voir dire last time, the “if you were already summoned recently and got rejected” exemption didn’t apply. Because without voir dire, I was never actually rejected. So I had to go back to city court again, just to get rejected in voir dire.

I nearly missed rent that month. “But wait, your employer typically keeps paying you even when you’re at jury duty, right?” I was a freelancer at the time. And every single summons landed in the middle of a week-long gig. So I basically had to cancel those three gigs (for being forced to miss a single day), and didn’t work for almost three weeks. Which meant I was basically three weeks short on paychecks.