Getting Out of Jury Duty
By Arnold Hernandez
One serious social issue is jury duty, it is often taken very lightly and often jurors don not want to stay on the case or need to get out of the case. The court system is often heavily impacted especially in places like California and jurors often get called to serve twice. It has become a serious social issue because many persons seek to get out of jury duty and some persons elect to refrain from voting, because of the burden of jury duty. Often jurors should not be hearing a case, because they have strong biases and should have been excused. One way of making the justice system work is for the juror to take a more proactive role and get excused quickly. The juror can leave and the remaining jurors can be more impartial.
There is not much mystery to how counties go about selecting potential jurors. Most jurors are selected from a list of public records, usually from the registrar of voters. If you never registered to vote you probably will never get called to serve as a juror. If you register to vote you will likely get called to jury duty. Contrary to popular belief, jurors tend to be smart people. Jurors get stuck with jury duty, because the rules are designed to make it almost impossible to get out of jury duty. There are a few things you can do to get out of jury duty. The easiest ways are of course to change your voting records. Two ways of doing it are to simply not register to vote when you move. Another is to reregister using the address of your second home if you have one and vote by absentee ballot, or use a relative's home address to register to vote. Other variations can be made, but these two methods I do not advocate and may get you in trouble.
If called to jury duty you will have to appear and have to spend much of your time waiting around. Trials really do require a lot of waiting for everyone except the judge. Sometimes attorneys are the ones causing the delay, because they are doing last minute negotiations to settle a claim. Even though the process is annoying to jurors, a settlement is a good news because it saves jurors several days of service. The typical trial lasts about 4 days and from time to time there are 2 week trials and occasionally incredibly long trails that can last several months.
Once you set foot in the court room, what you need to do is listen to what the case is about and listen to the questions the attorney are asking. When your turn comes up, all you have to do to get out of jury duty is be brutally honest. Most of us have strong feelings about certain cases and towards certain people. You need to communicated your feelings and biases towards the case or the people involved in the case. That is all that is required, do not be polite, do not hide your true feelings. You look at the plaintiffs, you look at the defendants, you look at the lawyers, you listen to what the case is about and strongly state your feelings about the case.
Wait for what the attorneys ask and then strongly state your feelings about what they are asking you. Also volunteer information about how you feel about the case. If you already know that personal injury plaintiffs should get nothing or only medical bills say so. "I would also like to add that I think personal injury claims are no sense and people are just looking for a quick buck."
If you make bold statements of how you feel about a case, other jurors will likely agree with you and support your statement. Chances are you will then be excused by the judge or at the request of an attorney and probably a few other jurors that agree with you.
A trial is not going to change your philosophy of life and it is okay, you have an absolute right to your beliefs and you have an absolute right to state how you feel about a particular case or issue or plaintiff. That is the big secret to getting out of jury duty, you have to partially comply in that you have to spend a half day in the court house, but you do not have to sit through five days of trial if you are brutally honest and refrain from being polite.
Sometimes you will make a statement that is biased and the judge will often ask if you can remain impartial. If you cannot remain impartial, say so. A simple no is often all that is required. Do not be afraid to upset the judge, even though you might upset him, he has not choice but to excuse you.
If you are impartial and have no strong feelings one way or the other, then you should stay, because you are providing a service to society and only people like you make the legal system work.
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