Jury Duty

[newanda]

Today i got picked for jury duty and i'm really confused. I got this packet in the mail that explains all about it, but yeah, still confused. :confused:

I got a juror questionnaire and it's 23 pages long. It asks some really far out there questions. I wonder if you can get out of jury duty for mental illness and if so what kind of mental illness. I should take it to my therapist and tell her to tell them i am crazy. :woot:

Anything anyone could tell me about jury duty would be appreciated. Thanks
Megan

[chocostashchick]

any reason that you would be biased against one of the parties involved - like if it is a robbery case and you had been robbed or something in the past

and i think mental illness would legitimately get you out of it because they would see it as instability and not being able to participate every day or something

good luck!

[blondiebear]

I don't know where you are and it is likely different from state to state.
I asked my psych about it a few months ago and she said that here in California, mental illness would only get me a 90 day delay.
I don't have any kind of questionare though. I have phone-in at the end of March, I guess you're supposed to phone in 2x/day to see if they'll need more warm bodies. i can only hope not.
I've talked my way off two juries, the second because it would interfere with my teaching schedule, the first because it was a DUI case and i'm an alcoholic in recovery.

If you get put in the jury box, your best chance of being excused is to have a strong opinion about the case!

[newanda]

I don't know the parties involved, but, I don't really want to try and get out of it, i think it might be a neat experience. For some reason i think it's really funny that they picked me.

The questionair has really thrown me for a loop though. They want to know if I have any magazine subscriptions and if i do, what they are. I mean, i can see why they want to know that, but it's just funny. I'm 24 and there are some questions on there that, to be honest, i haven't formed an opinion about. I also tend to be really sarcastic and a bit of a smart-ass, and i just don't think that's going to work. I'm gonna have to tone it down for this one! I dont think they'll appreciate that kind of stuff on my questionair.

Ohh, and i'm in arkansas and the term is for 3 months, april-june, 90 day delay would be perfect! And i still can't stop laughing about it for some reason. :) Thanks for the advice

[PropheticStar]

"The trick is to say you're prejudiced against all races"

[~invisible~girl~]

I don't think you can get out of it for mental illness unless there's a medical reason that it would be detrimental to your health. However, any minimally competent attorney is going to exclude jurors with a mental illness that would interfere with their ability to do their job. That would be especially relevant if it involves impaired reality testing, since obviously that would be problematic for interpreting facts at trial. And obviously no lawyer would want a juror to be hallucinating during the trial! Also things like narcolepsy might get someone excluded if they were liable to fall asleep during the trial or things like that.

If you want to get out of jury duty, it's usually not too hard during the juror selection process. You can just say you have a personal bias against whatever they ask you about that's relevant to the case. Even if it's really obvious you're just trying to get out of jury duty, both attorneys want jurors who are going to take their job seriously, and people who don't want to be there are going to tend not to do that.

I got out of jury duty just by making absolutely no effort to sit still when they were questioning us. I have ADHD, and I didn't take my meds that day (intentionally), so I spent most of the time twisting my chair and staring up at the ceiling. I also chewed gum the whole time (and played with it), and tried my best to look like an apathetic teenager, since I was 18 at the time and figured I could use that to my advantage. And it didn't hurt that when one of the lawyers asked me a question I actually did miss what he said and had to ask him to repeat it, so it was really clear I wasn't going to be listening.

[Kangaroo]

i don't think you should try to get out of it unless you are genuinly incapable of performing the duties. and if that is the case then you would need to speak to your dr. personally i would love to be on a jury. i suggest you go for it and grab the experience with both hands. you might never get the chance again.

[~invisible~girl~]

^^ i think we get the chance like every 18 months or something... maybe we just have a lot more crime than in the uk...

[effervescence]

actually jury duty is quite fun, i did it last year and i had quite a big case but usually they dont last too long just a few days, its really interesting. it u dont want to do it, follow other peoples advice like saying you're prejudiced against everything basically that should do it.