No it's not. I'm self employed. If I don't show up for work, I don't get my $450-600/day rate. If I'm stuck on a jury for some jackass who decided to burglarize someone's home over a few hundred bucks in computers and stereos over the course of 2 weeks, he's cost me $6k. That's a lot of money for a freelancer. I'm not giving up that kind of money to sit around for 8 hours a day to get paid a $3 lunch over something like that. Take your self-righteousness and go home.
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Jury Duty Experiences
- Thread starter Doctor Q
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No it's not. I'm self employed. If I don't show up for work, I don't get my $450-600/day rate. If I'm stuck on a jury for some jackass who decided to burglarize someone's home over a few hundred bucks in computers and stereos over the course of 2 weeks, he's cost me $6k. That's a lot of money for a freelancer. I'm not giving up that kind of money to sit around for 8 hours a day to get paid a $3 lunch over something like that. Take your self-righteousness and go home.
I believe financial hardship is a valid exemption, plus they don't want someone with an axe to grind sitting on a jury...
As I said, people like you are part of the problem. Me me me... You do relize that the possibility of you actually sitting on a case is rather low don't you? Oh wait, you don't because you refuse to actually show.
It is your civic duty as an American, if you don't like it might I suggest you find a new place to live? Perhaps a place with your attitude that everyone is guilty and owes you something?
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It is actually, all he would have to do is show his poossible loss and they would propbably release him or push him out to a date that was less of a burden.
It's pretty difficult to get a hardship exemption. I recently watched someone in a similar (more dire) situation get stuck on a jury.
In my case when the person said he worked for hourly wages, they seemed sympathetic, but I don't remember if he was one of the individuals picked for the jury anyway!
My guess it is state by state, but are employers required by law to reimburse hourly employees sitting on jury duty? If it's a social responsibllity, then the employer in most cases would be better equipped to take the financial hardship over the hourly employee, imo.
In my case when the person said he worked for hourly wages, they seemed sympathetic, but I don't remember if he was one of the individuals picked for the jury anyway!
The juror's employer is required to give them the time off, but, as far as I know, they are not required to pay them. As you can imagine, what might constitute a hardship can get quite complex, but my (limited) experience in California (plus plenty of discussions with a relative who was a public defender for many years in the state) suggests that it is quite difficult to get a hardship exemption.
While it's not the norm, for a long trial, you are saying that an hourly employee barely scraping by, would be required to face all sorts of financial blowback, unpaid bills, rent/mortgage, etc, to do their civic duty? I'd resist.
My understanding is that my large corporate employer reimburses individuals for jury duty, but the entire time I had the job, traveling as a pilot, I was never called. I have no idea if this was luck or an understanding the local governments had (due to the high % of airline employees in the area) not to call people with this profession. Since moving to Texas, I've been called in 2 times in 2 years (different jurisdictions- city vs county). Locally, there is a 2 year exemption after serving.
I would hope they'd either get paid or a hardship exemption, but I don't have a good idea how it plays out in general.
It is difficult to get an exemption, but it is not hard to ask to be bumped out a little, I did it here in MD. Plus, if he is making the kind of cash that he claims he is making, then it shouldn't be difficult to give a few days back, that really is my point. Either way, he has a poor attitude towards his civic duty. Sadly this is most of America now... We used to work together, now we could give a crap about the next guy.
That is a good point. For someone self employed making $3000 a week, you won't get much sympathy for 1 or 2 days lost wages, even more. From my experience many (most?) of these jury obligations are 1-2 days, less likely is a week, but for the hard core trial it could be a month. A friend came close to serving on an asbestos trial that lasted over a month.
I came close to sitting on a vehicular manslaughter (plus other charges) case recently. They estimated about a month of trial. There was a poor self-employed woman trying to keep her business afloat for whom noone (judge, lawyers) seemed to have any sympathy (well they expressed it verbally but never excused her for hardship). Based on some of the other things she said during voir dire I was inclined to believe her story of hardship.
you're right, in California employers are NOT required to pay employees while they're on jury duty
on the other hand, the court pays jurors $15 a day (starting on the second day anyway).......wheeeee!
on the other hand, the court pays jurors $15 a day (starting on the second day anyway).......wheeeee!
Hehehe, plus something like 40ish cents per mile. They don't use IRS mileage reimbursement levels.
Ok, I can see if they are pulling in 400 people (or more) per day for jury duty in a large city, I can see the $3 pay, otherwise it would be a large expense. One of the obligations for freedom and liberty, right??
However, there is no justification to put someone into financial jeopardy to perform this duty.
so that lets just about everybody out of jury duty! wheeee!!!!!
(ok, not quite everybody.....in california the state pays state employees their regular salary while they're on jury duty)
but just one way......starting the second day
Here you go, at least for California:
https://www.saccourt.ca.gov/jury/excuse.aspx
In California, any nursing mother will automatically get a postponement from jury duty. We had two children roughly 26 months apart, and IIRC, you can not be summoned for jury duty less than 18 months apart. She was summoned 5 months after our first child was born, and then again 22 months after that, a month after our second child was born. Needless to say, jury duty wasn't going to happen.
BL.