Happy Labor Day!
What if you’ve been called to jury duty and want to labor instead, like a friend’s busy MD/PhD wife? The husband’s advice: “Told her to wear a Trump shirt there.”
Is that permissible? The rules:
Is there a dress code for jury duty?
Performing jury duty is a serious obligation, and people reporting for jury duty should dress in a manner that indicates respect for the court and the people who are relying on the jury to resolve their disputes. While there is no specific dress code, in general you should avoid clothing that is excessively casual, revealing, or in bad condition when you report for jury service. If you are impaneled on a case, the judge may give you additional guidance on appropriate dress for a sitting juror.
Readers: Would it work? And Happy Labor Day! If you do have jury duty next week, I hope that it is an interesting case.
Related:
- How to escape participation in a Gay Pride parade? Say that you support the cause, but want to be on a Gays for Trump float. (NBC)
The easiest way to bug out of jury duty is to express clear preference for one side during jury selection. For example, small business vs terminated employee – Q: “Should same rules apply to both large and small corporations?”, A: “Of course not, it’s much harder to run small business, they should be able to fire anyone they want.” Booms, you are out.
have never been selected/interviewed (just had to spend about 3 hours awaiting selection at which point we were told that they had enough jurors), but your brother-in-law who made it to the selection process several times said he was pretty confident that he wouldn’t be chosen (and he wasn’t any of the times) as they dislike PhDs for being too cerebral (and potentially raising too many questions???). If you live in DC you will constantly be called for jury duty due to the sheer no of cases per capita, but since we were living in the suburbs, this was once/decade. But it’s a non-stop civic duty if you are an employed, literate person and a DC resident (based on colleagues who are constantly on jury duty).
Disclosing that my cousin is a cop and my friend works as an assistant DA got me booted off a jury. The judge asked if I could be fair and I said yes, which was good enough for him, but the defense attorney used a peremptory challenge to dismiss me.
My wife took a more direct approach and said that she got all her news from Ruch Limbaugh, and saw no reason to be fair to immigrants, despite being one herself. Got released from federal jury duty. The court house was a 100 miles from our home so she really didn’t want to go.
If you get the call when you are 69 then defer until after your 70th birthday and then take the over 70 exemption.
If it is a DUI case then you will be dismissed if your religion has rules against drinking.
I just brought a Wall Street Journal with me.
Tom C ftw!
If you appear to have a triple digit IQ you likely will be stricken by the defense in any criminal case — criminal defense lawyers want jurors who are, shall we say, suggestible. So my advice would be to wear thick glasses and a pocket protector bulging with pens and pencils and carry a slide rule. The defense lawyers will think you are a real brain and might even be able to dismiss you for cause.
She needs to be careful. Judges can get angry with people trying to evade their duty. She will likey not get selected due to her PhD. No one wants jurors with education but she will have to set in the room for about a half a day. I have gone down lots of time and never got picked. I figured it was partly due to MsEE. I also told the judge once I had been robbed multiple times and cops did not do anything. That comment got me last kicked off even though it was true.
For any question the judge or the attorneys ask you, simply answer “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” [1], [2] and off you are the jury duty.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH-VuP_5cA4
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16KaoVmVTPE
I get called every 3 years and get excused because I am self employed. Still miss a day of work.
Reschedule for Thanksgiving or Christmas week. The courts closes for 2 or more days during those weeks, and often have several half days. My niece is a court reporter, so this is her advice.
I worked with a technician at a mostly defunct company that started with the letter “M” and ended with “a” and made cell phones and chips for a fruity computer vendor. My boss told my technician coworker, “do whatever you think you need to do, but don’t get picked for jury duty,” which, I think was/is illegal.
Anyway, the technician went to the judge where you tell your hardship so you can be excused and told the judge was that he was fed up with being stricken from juries, the voire dire process was a fraud he was sick and tired of answering questions and never getting on a jury. He was asking the judge to please put him on a jury so he could vote his conscience. He was excused and never called again!