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.
I think its $12/hr compensation, and fuel only gets reimbursed if you gotta drive for more than an hour to show up. I got my letter on my desk, but its for an undetermined date in july
I’ve been summoned as a juror twice in >20 years of eligibility. They have a number you call when the date comes to see if you actually have to appear or not; the first time, I didn’t have to go at all. The second time, I did have to appear; I sat in a waiting room with about 20 other people for an hour, then we were all told we could go home.
Overall, shitty experience.
We were explained that even sitting there waiting to be called was important. Usually things become real to the defendants when there’s a jury waiting and things settle at the last minute.
Having been on the receiving end of that, the prosecutor tacked on a bunch of extra charges the day before my trial, so that me and my overworked public defender would agree to a plea bargain.
That explains the wait-then-dismiss situation. On the other hand, I wonder if the person on trial actually did it or if they were pressured into a plea deal…
I do not have a lot of faith in our court system.
That time, we sat on a civil case, so a settlement would have been money changing hands
My doctor sent them a note suggesting an anxious autistic man with anxiety disorders who’s prone to panic attacks probably shouldn’t be a juror. They excused me.
Yeah I’ve been summoned a bunch of times (California). You get that at most 1x per year and usually you’re not needed (you’re excused over the phone, or you go to the courthouse and wait around most of the day before getting sent home). If you’re sent from the waiting room to an actual courtroom, you’re there with 50 or so other people who get called up and questioned (“voir dire”) one by one til they have selected 12 jurors and 4 alternates. Anyone left over is sent home. Once I made it all the way into the questioning phase but then got excused. I haven’t yet actually been on a jury. Anyway it’s time consuming but not that hard. There’s a small payment for those who need it. It’s nowhere near minimum wage.
Canadian here. Got summoned a few years ago. I applied for excusal on account of my autism and lack of transport to get to the courthouse which was in another city.
I have diagnosis documents for proof if needed but they never asked me. My request was approved and I never had to go.
Truly embarrassing experience. One judge gave us a whole spiel about ‘if you think this is hard, imagine how THE TROOPS FEEL’. The judge for the case I was on told a single mother of 3 that being out of work for 4 days was not a ‘real hardship’ that would exempt her. I was made to sit through a case that probably shouldn’t have gone to trial. Basically, the primary witness and the defendant could have both been guilty of the crimes, and it seemed like something was being hidden from us. My job pays me a full rate for any time on jury duty. I don’t remember the exact amount, but it was much less than I would have made going to work. You’re basically coerced to get a quick verdict.
I got a summons during Covid, first summons I ever got, and haven’t gotten one sense. I was in my mid 30s, I kind of wanted to go just to see it for myself at least once but I’m an organ transplant recipient and I felt it was too risky to be out and about during Covid so my transplant clinic wrote me an excuse not that it wasn’t medically appropriate for me to attend and I was excused.
I think you always go back into the pool regardless of the outcome of your summons.
I once got summoned while I was in the hospital being treated for Leukemia. They gave me an exemption and some get well wishes.
No, I don’t live in either of those countries, so have never been called up there.
Thank you for your contribution!
I served on Grand Jury in NY state. 2 days a week for 8 weeks, listened to the evidence and decided if there was enough to charge/not charge. Really interesting experience.
I’m 47, I’ve been summoned twice, but never selected to actually serve.
Don’t try to get out of it. It’s the most power you will ever get as a single citizen in the US. You can make the difference in someone else’s life, and it may be a matter of life and death based on a law that you don’t even think should exist. If you ever have a trial by jury, you don’t want to be judged by a group of people who couldn’t think of a good-enough excuse to get out of it, you want smart people who will potentially put their foot in the door between you and unjust laws.
Read up on jury nullification. Try to get on a jury. Don’t tell them anything they don’t ask directly. Dress like anything but who they think they don’t want on their jury during the voir dire process.
I was summoned once, but no juries were selected that day. My younger brother was the foreperson of a grand jury.
Not yet, but everyone I know that were summoned, total 3 instances, never actually served.
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.
I’ve been summoned twice in the past 7 years and neither time did I actually even get to the point where they interview to decide if I would have been a juror.
First time I got summons was like a month after I moved to a different city for work and I let them know and they said okay you don’t need to come.
Second was like last year and I accepted the summons but then got a notification that I was no longer needed as the trial wouldn’t happen. I assume plea deal or something.
