10 Excuses To Avoid Jury Selection

A few weeks ago, I was forced to do the one civic duty that almost every registered voter dreads- jury duty. While sitting through 9 hours of hell, I learned many useful excuses to avoid being selected for an actual trial. Here are 10 ways to avoid being selected for a trial if you are called in for jury duty.

• Paid For Vacation - If you are financially binded to a trip, they’ll let you go.
• Business Owner - If I go to trial, who is going to open my business? It works.
• Family Commitment - “I have a wedding to go to that day, sorry.” or better yet “I’m the bestman in a wedding that day, I don’t think there is anyway I can get out o fi it…”. What judge is going to make you come in over that?
• Back Problems - Trials can be long. If you tell them you can’t sit for more than an hour at a time, you will probably be dismissed.
• Hearing Problems - Tell the judge you can’t hear well. The lady next to me used this one and the judge gave her a hearing test (he asked her to repeat him). She was dismissed from selection shortly after.
• Surgery - Someone close to you is going into surgery. You have to be there to take them home and care for them. If you can work in some tears (it’s tough to do in front of 50 people) you’ll be money.
• Transportation - Public Transportation. You can’t depend on the bus being punctual and the judge won’t take the chance of his court running late because of you.
• Urinary Problems - Tell the judge you gotta pee every hour and sometimes sooner. Sitting in the jury box could be a problem if you have to pee while someone is being questioned.
• Racial Issues - Tell them you have personal views that may prevent you from making an impartial decision. AKA you are racist in some way. They’ll pass on you.
• Any Issue With The Case - Tell them you had a past experience that may affect your impartial-ness. Murder trial? Tell them your dog was murdered and you feel that may affect your judgement. That should work.

The possibilities are endless. These are just some of the ACTUAL EXCUSES people used. Every single person with an excuse was told they could go home, while the rest of us had to ride it out and pray we weren’t selected.

Make up an excuse and say it early before the guy next to ya steals it!

Godspeed.

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