http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Out-of-Jury-Duty
While searching for something to post about juries for this week I was a little surprised with the results that came up. Regardless what I tied to the word jury, at least a quarter of the sites would be about getting out of jury duty. These sites ranged from the generally oriented wikihow entry I posted above, to forums and state specific entire websites devoted to figuring out ways to avoid this obligation.
While it is technically your civic duty to serve, citizens have no problem swapping secrets to rid themselves of what most people consider a burden. The amount of information available paints a picture that jury duty is something that is looked at with considerable disdain. What is there to motivate you to spend your time and resources to commit to it, especially when considering the only extrinsic motivator is a very small monetary fee? While it is the law you must attend your summons, from what I have heard from peers, and older adults, is that skipping out on it is not a big deal and often nothing will be done about it, regardless of the fines in place. How did these attitudes get put into place?
It seems to me that avoiding civic duty, and breaking the law would be detrimental to mental health, at least for anyone who has good morals and values. Though it is understandable that it is not possible for many people to meet this obligation, the pure hatred for the process is very evident in many of the get out of jury duty forums. Here's an excerpt from a forum detailing how a candidate actually was directly aggressive about getting out of his obligation.
"After sitting through jury selection and finding myself
being "ordered" to return the following day to serve on a jury I had
this conversation with the judge:
"I believe it is wrong for you to hold me here against my will when I have
committed no crime."
"You're not being held here, you're serving on a jury."
"Well it is against my will to do so if you're forcing me to do this then
you are holding me here against my will."
"Juror number 12, you're excused.""
This brings up a couple of questions, would this happen with any judge? Is it not true that you can't be held against your will regardless of situation unless you are put under arrest?
There are also sites out there that have these exact same questions about why people avoid the duty and have a lot of interesting comments on the forum that really gives you some insight into the mindset of people.
Leave a comment