wispfox | [jury duty.query]

[also posted to

ljgenie]

I've been summonsed for jury duty in ~1.5 months.

I suspect strongly that my difficulty with processing large chunks of spoken words will make me... somewhat unsuited for such a thing. I don't, however, have any proof of this problem.

Do I just tell them about my concerns, and let them make the decision? Or is there something else I ought to be doing?

I'm perfectly willing to try to go ahead and be on a jury. But I note that I have difficulty with meetings (generally ~1 hour long) if I can't take notes and play a game on my Palm, and even with _those_ aids, I'm exhausted after about 1.5-2 hours. And the pamphlet says I should expect to need to pay close attention for somewhere around 6 hours.

If I'm lucky, I won't be called for any trials, and it won't come up. If not, though, I have a strong suspicion that jury duty would entail the least pleasant and most exhausting mental activity I could possibly be doing, and will make me unfit for human company during the entire time I'm doing it.

I've never before needed proof of this problem, as I'm very good at avoiding situations in which it would come up. So I don't have any. And, much as I'm sure my mother (a school psych) would probably be willing to write something explaining the problem, she's related to me. So probably wouldn't be an acceptable source of such information.

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The last time I had to actually *go* to jury duty, which was probably at least twelve years ago, I was actually briefly put through voir dire.

Very briefly.

Apparently, when I said that I didn't feel I could make any kind of judgement without hearing both sides of the story, and the judge said that the law didn't require the defendant to say a thing in court, and I responded "Well, she's here, so they must have had enough evidence to arrest her, and that's going to influence how I think about this," suddenly the defense attorney felt that I wasn't suitable for his jury.

*shrug* I dunno. I wasn't lying when I said that, but I'm a different person now and I've grown up a lot. Even so, I know that my diagnosis will keep me off juries for the rest of my life; my judgement and my understanding of the world are too flawed to be useful in any situation where I'm supposed to be the judge, and could cause an innocent person a lot of legal damage.

*nod* Yeah, this all makes sense to me. By this point, I have a good enough grasp of social interaction that this particular concern (about being able to be impartial) isn't one I have.

But not being able to process all the information which people are trying to give me _is_ a possible problem.

On the plus side, I suspect that the fact that I learned how to cope with lecture-based classes would help, if I have the ability to take notes. And/or play non-complicated games on my Palm.

most of the time, jury duty involves sitting in a room for somewhere between 4 and 6 hours, bored off your ass (unless you bring sufficiently entertaining material).

in some cases, there will be a case which requires a jury. they will let you know when this happens. this will prevent you from being dismissed at 11:00am. (both times i was summoned, i was let go before noon.)

in a small percent of those cases, they will actually pick jurors to go through voir dire (i.e. the attorney interview to determine if you're fit to serve). it is possible that you will not even be picked.

if you make it this far, then you have to talk to the attorneys and the judge. i don't have any advice here, except that cynical friends of mine claim that sounding intelligent is enough to get you throw off a jury. professing any sort of bias about the subject matter of the case is pretty much guaranteed to work, too.

good luck. i wouldn't worry too much about it though.

good luck. i wouldn't worry too much about it though.

Thanks, and thanks for the info.

Tell them. Be honest. If they need proof, offer what you can, or talk at more length at how you deal with it in the rest in your life, which will show that it is something you've spent a lot of time thinking about and didn't just make up then and there.

*nod* Noted.

This is what I would have done, anyway, but the initial form says something about 'if you can't do this for some reason, please say so and provide proof', which implies to me that they don't really want people trying to explain it _there_.

But, again, I'm not completely positive that it _would_ be a problem, and other than that processing problem, I'm probably a pretty decent person to have on a jury.

I suspect they'll let you explain it there, and that the note on the initial form is to weed out those who have really simple and commonplace reasons they can't serve, not to indicate that this is the last chance to escape for everyone who has any reason they can't serve.

Ah! Yes, good point. Now I don't feel quite so bad about potentially having to explain it there.

If you can't get out of it completely another option is to ask to be put on Grand Jury duty instead of the regular jury. Typically standard jury duty is every day for a week or two. Grand jury duty, at least here in NH, meets once a month for ~ 6 months. I'm not sure if that would be any better for you but now you know it is an option. I remember my father taking that option once as it was easier for him to take one day off a month for six months or so instead of being out of work all at once.

My own experience in MA was going for a single day, reading a book, and then going home. We don't have "come in every day for a week", unless you get put on a trial, in which case you're there for the duration of the trial (be it a day or a month). So I don't think this would really be useful for this particular issue.

Ah, that is different then my experience in NH. Please ignore what I said then.

The obvious answer is simply to explain your circumstances. Keep in mind that most cases will be relatively simple, and there will be changes of pace (one witness called, another witness called, etc.) *AND* keep in mind that attornies want to keep you interested enough that you don't miss something important.

Many people called to serve never end up on a jury; I've been called twice, once for "one day, one trial" in Philadelphia, and once for a week in Ohio, and in six days, I only sat at a junk trial (one quickly declared a mistrial, due to the ineptitude of the plaintiff (who was representing herself)). As the court folks were fond of telling us (so we didn't feel cheated/used/etc.) many people, when realizing it's about to become "real", realize that a plea bargain is really not a bad idea, or that (in a lawsuit) the proposed setllement really is pretty close to fair.

changes of pace (one witness called, another witness called, etc.)

True! I'd forgotten about that. That would help quite a lot.

Keeping me interested... it's less about interest and more about too much spoken information at a time. So this matters less.

When you go in, if they even actually try to impanel you, they'll sit you in a room with a mess of other people and ask you a whole bunch of questions to determine your fitness for the jury. Even if you feel everything else about the case is fine (the one I was called for was a sexual harassment case -- not a chance!), they always ask something like "is there any other reason you feel you couldn't be a fair and impartial juror?" and you could always raise your hand at that point. Raising your hand just means you'll get to explain to the judge and lawyers how you think it might be difficult for you to be a good juror.

So that's what I'd do :)

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