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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OR, you could just not register to vote….
I had them defer it until 2007.
Because of school.
Then I had them defer it again because although I could have the day off of work, it would be impossible to catch up if I skipped it.
you are a terrible person. they are going to catch you at some point
Im not lying, it’s true.
I always go with racially insensitive humor, works like a charm.
I can’t work up the balls to say that stuff in front of everyone.
tell the judge you slept with one of the lawyers, that is a sure fire way to get out of jury duty
I always like the old…I have a irritable (sp?) shitter movements
comments working?
i just don’t respond and claim i never received it in the mail.
ps - the butter is back.
I just served jury duty a few weeks ago. Two jurors were dismissed without question for the same reason…irritable bowl syndrome. They didn’t even have to show evidence they trully had that problem. Worked like gold!
i had jury duty once and i told the judge that in the bible, it says “judge not,” and that only god may judge. i said i can’t sit in judgment on another person because it offends god. he looked at the prosecutor and the prosecutor looked at him and the judge smiled at me and said “dismissed.” the other jurors all groaned and i got up and left.
i went out to the juror waiting room and a couple hours later i got called again, for another trial. i went in and said the exact same thing, and the second judge dismissed me just as quickly as the first one had. i went back out to the waiting room, waited until 3pm rolled around, and went home.
oh, and for the record, i’m 100% athiest, always have been, and i consider christianity to be a vile plague that needs to be eradicated from the earth. but it came in handy in a pinch!
anyway, now my wife works and i’m a stay-at-home dad, and so i’ve got an iron-clad excuse (can’t serve if you’re the only care-giver for a minor child). i won’t have to worry about that jury duty crap for YEARS.
if it weren’t for christianity you wouldn’t have that excuse.
You all suck.
I’m with Trish. If you are ever in a situation in which you could select a jury of your peers or a bench trial, picking trial by jury would be hypocrasy. I hate jury duty myself but because I have a conscience and believe, for the most part, our judicial system works as well as anything anybody has come up with, I will do my civic duty.
Suck it up. It is usually just one day every couple years.
As my workplace pays me for my jury duty time plus the stipend from the court system, I actually look forward to jury duty. And screwing with it any way I can. I actually caused a hung jury in a pedophile case. Makes all of you dead beats kinda wonder, dosent it?
Yea but if you can get dismissed early for a solid excuse, you can spend the day drinking beer and still get paid for it…eh? eh?
Just say that the defendant looks quilty.
I myself want to boycott jury duty until they can insure that its a safe place to go to. I had jury duty today and well someone broke into my car right in the courthouse parking lot! The parking lot isnt in the best place, and the fact that they dont have cameras there is really unfortunate! I tried calling around to see what i could do about it. but it seems as if no one cares.