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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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[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Was summoned once, and ended up on the jury. It was a really sad case where the cops were trying to put an 80-something year old former convict back in prison, because his son in law had a gun in the house (that they searched because of something the son in law did, but no charges were brought against him), and that was a violation of the 80-year-old's release conditions from like 40 years ago.

I really wanted to end up on the jury in order to keep this guy out of prison, which luckily we did. The defense was very smart in making his case sympathetic, even though legally the guy had no leg to stand on. There were a few jurors that wanted to imprison him, but we finally got them to go with the majority to ignore the law and keep him out of prison.

The easy rule of thumb if you do/don't want to be on the jury: the less you talk, the more likely you are to end up on the jury. The more annoying you are, especially talking about how busy you are, or asking a lot of pointless questions: the less likely you are to end up on the jury.