Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/04/man-who-yelled-guilty-to.html
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That is not how to get out of jury duty.
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omg right? I just tell them I’m an empiricist and they dismiss me promptly.
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The one time I was in the courtroom for Jury duty the trick to getting out was to be a card carrying member of the ACLU. There were three different people who had the actual card and they all got dismissed after showing it. I didn’t even know there was a card.
It should be noted that it is the lawyers doing the rejecting here, so it’s not going to work in every case. The one thing I thought was odd was that it was entirely the prosecutors doing the rejection in my case. The defense basically didn’t ask anything of any of the jurists while the prosecution was efficiently slicing through the candidates looking for anybody troublesome. I wonder if the defendant was using a public defender?
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And this didn’t work either:
Harold Finch: I can’t think of anything that would prejudice me in this case. I mean, except for the larger issues with our government.
Judge: Issues?
Harold Finch: Well, one can’t really call it government of the people by the people anymore, can one? Because we’re all being watched by an intelligent supercomputer that’s slowly but surely taking over the world.
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I’ve never been called for jury duty, but I really don’t have any desire to avoid it. Our system functions even worse than it otherwise would if everyone who can craft a reasonable plan to get out of jury duty does so.
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I got called for city duty once. 2 days of hurry up and wait. The 2nd day I got called but we were told to take lunch and when we got back to be told nevermind and go home. I guess someone copped a plea while we were out.
The amusing thing the mrs who is a green card holder got called for city and county duty before I got my summons. We were baffled by how her name got into the system.
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I’m pretty sure in most jurisdictions, if your father and your wife both have medical issues you can just talk to the clerk and fill out an exemption form. Geez.
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How to get out of Jury Duty in Two Simple Steps:
- Say “Jury”
- Say “Nullification”
ETA: Just want to clarify that you shouldn’t actually say this verbatim, but should instead use a more tactful route of claiming knowledge of the system of jury nullification.
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I actually served on a jury for an attempted murder trial. Fascinating and interesting, plus we got out most days after 3pm. It was like a mini-vacation from work.
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A lady in my jury pool got out when they asked her what line of work she was in. Psychic. She teaches people how to be psychics (significant snickering from crowd). Judge asked her where she ‘gets this psychic information from?’ ‘it just comes to me’ riiiiiiight
Next!
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I got called once. After a whole day of waiting I ended up in the courtroom. The defense council asked me one question: whether I’d really be able to be impartial given that the defendant was black. I said I would be impartial. The defense council assented to have me on the jury, the prosecution said they didn’t want me, and off I went.
I wasn’t super impressed.
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On voir dire, I always get asked the stock question of, “will you follow the judge’s instructions, whatever your personal beliefs about the law?”
I answer, “If you’re asking me if I would have stood with Edward Bushell, I hope that I would have had the courage. If you’re asking me if this defendant is anything like William Penn, not bloody likely!”
The answer’s the truth, it’s not contemptuous (so I don’t risk being jailed for saying it), and … somehow, I always wind up excused.
To a lawyer or judge, the answer translates to, “Yes, I know about jury nullification, and can cite the 1670 case that established it in Common Law. No, I don’t want to blurt that out and poison the rest of the jury. No, I don’t think I’m likely to nullify in the case at hand. Oh, you want to challenge me as a juror? Very well. Have a nice day.”
Would lying about the issue conform better with my civic responsibility?
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I had jury duty recently in a wrongful death suit against The Kaiser Group, a medical insurance company. Kaiser has a bad reputation in this area and it was amazing to see the potential jurors drop like flies due bad incidents, service or previous suits with Kaiser. Former nurses, medical practitioners, or patients all claiming in so many words that Kaiser sucked and that the perception was that Kaiser was “guilty of something”.
They probably went thru 20 jurors before the final 9 were chosen. I was one of the last ones left in the pool. I’ve had bad experiences with Kaiser too and probably would had been kicked off as a result.
There are many other ways to say guilty without getting arrested.
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I had a similar experience, though the defendant in this trial was white, it was a big deal in town, but I hadn’t read anything about the crime, so I said I could be impartial. The defense said, “OK” , the Crown said nope. And off I went back to work. Jury selection, it’s like magic (except, not really, since most “magic” is fairly easily explained).
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I’ve been summoned once, too. While I know jury duty can be socially and financially inconvenient (the county here pays you $10 per day, plus travel mileage, so I’m lucky to work for a company that pays you while you’re summoned), it does kind of bother me how dismissively it’s treated. To a certain extent, the system is only as good as the jurors.
I actually got picked to sit on a jury for a witness intimidation case. The defendant was black (a fact that the defense attorney made it a point to discuss during selection), and there were a lot of “I don’t see color” / “why are you even bringing this up?” remarks from people in the pool with me. Shockingly, none of them got picked /s. (Un?)fortunately, the case “blew up”, to use the judge’s words, the day the trial was supposed to start, so I got put back into the pool, was excused in the next case I was brought in for, and ended up on the “not needed today” list for the rest of the 2-week period. The worst part of it was probably the non-zero amount of exposure to House Hunters in the waiting room.
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I’ve been called many times over the years, and the only time I got out of it in advance was when I contacted them to say I was still exclusively nursing my baby, so could I bring her with me? They told me a baby means I was excused and wouldn’t be put back in the system for a year. That seems quite reasonable to me.
But I’ve never gotten further than the cattle call in the courtroom. Never even had to answer specific questions from lawyers, although I have a few times from judges, but always within the sense of them asking for a show of hands in the room.
Meanwhile, that particular baby grew up and was called to jury duty during finals week as an 18 or 19 year old college student. For some reason they did NOT excuse her, and in fact they put her on a jury within the first hour. (I’ve never even made it to a courtroom that quickly.) She tried explaining law and logic to the other jury members, who looked at her youth and completely discounted her, so they ended up voting the other way (I think it was a civil suit, or something that could be decided with less than a unanimous vote.)
And now, she’s thinking about law school, at least partly due to how she felt about that experience. So I guess something good CAN come from being called to jury duty!
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