Can you get out of jury duty?

In some states, one can ask to be excused after being summoned to serve as a jury. In other States no excuse is accepted. However, you can still get off, but at least one visit is needed for the service. This is my personal experience with the New York Jury Service.

I recently received a summons for jury duty. New York courts no longer allow exceptions, so I can’t be fired even if I have a business. Also, only one postponement can be granted, which was of no use to me.

When summoned, one has to call every day for a week for instructions. They keep selecting people from the jury pool all week long. If they don’t get back to you by the end of the week, you’re considered to have provided good service and they can’t call you back for six years. This may be different in your state.

It turned out that I was ordered to appear in court Tuesday at 9 am I waited in the waiting room for three hours. Fortunately, they provided Wi-Fi so I was able to provide email support to my customers through my iPad during that time.

At noon I was assigned a case, along with 30 others. An officer led us into a courtroom.

The judge explained the case to us and said that the trial could last two weeks. The case involved a drug dealer who allegedly shot two police officers.

The judge called us to the stand, one by one, to interview us along with the two lawyers for the plaintiff and the defendant. Any of them could refuse to accept us if they did not feel that we would decide in their favor for their respective clients. In that case we would be fired. That is why they interview 30 people to get 12 jurors.

In my case, none of the lawyers felt threatened by me. However, the judge completed the interview by asking me if I can honestly give my full attention to the case without being biased.

I responded by saying, “Two weeks away is a hardship. I have my own business and I need to be available to help my clients, otherwise I may lose my business.”

The judge asked me what I do. I told him that I develop and support small business phone systems and need to be able to help customers in a timely manner when they have questions.

With that, the judge said, “I’ll send you back to the waiting room and they’ll assign you to another case that won’t take two weeks.”

After waiting more I was told to go for lunch. I was unable to use my cell phone while in the waiting room, but during lunch I was able to return a few calls to customers.

When I came back they hadn’t found another case for me, so they fired me. They marked my record as “served” and therefore I cannot be called to jury duty for another six years.

That turned out better than asking for a postponement. Just a missed day of work.