What Should You Know About Jury Duty?

If you get a summons for jury duty, you may feel less than excited. In fact, even that might be an overstatement. No matter how much you're told serving on a jury is your civic duty, sitting in a courthouse for hours or days at a time might not be ideal for you. In fact, you might think pretty much anything else sounds more pleasant. 

Even so, if you're summoned, the following are things to know and what can happen if you skip jury duty.  

An Overview of Jury Duty

When you are a citizen of the U.S., you might get a summons for jury duty. This summons can come from a state or Federal court. It will let you know a specific day and time you're to appear. 

The particulars of jury duty do vary between states, as do labor laws that determine your employer's responsibilities if you're gone for jury duty. 

If you are called for jury duty, depending on where you live, you might be able to phone the court the night before you're supposed to report, and they'll let you know whether or not they need your services. 

If you're called for jury duty, and you show up at court, you're either selected to serve or you're dismissed. 

If you're dismissed you may be able to return to work that day. 

While being dismissed could represent what you consider a best-case scenario, at the same time there's also a chance you're on a jury that requires a commitment of months and you may be sequestered during that time. 

What About Work?

If you are called for jury duty, employers in nearly all states are required under their state law to give you time off work, since it's your civic duty.

If you get a summons and it's for a time of year when your employer might be significantly impacted by you taking time off, your employer might be able to petition the court in the form of a letter written that will explain why you're needed. 

The court can then consider the request. 

Depending on where you live, your state might not allow your employer to take money out of your pay if you're out for jury duty, but this isn't universally the case. 

Under federal law, your employer can't take action against you like firing you if you have to go for jury duty. 

If you work for the state or federal government, you're more likely to get paid leave for jury duty. 

There are eight states that require employers to pay employees while they're doing jury duty. These states are:

• Alabama

• Colorado

• Connecticut

• Louisiana

• Massachusetts

• Nebraska

• New York

• Tennessee

The Selection Process

When you get to court, the judge and lawyers come in for something called voir dire, otherwise known as jury selection. 

At this time, the judge introduces the case and the lawyers, and then lawyers can ask you questions. 

The goal during this time is to figure out whether or not potential members of the jury might have a bias. The lawyers may be allotted around an hour to ask questions. 

There are two juror strikes that can occur, which means reducing the pool of people to the actual jury.

There are strikes for cause and peremptory strikes. 

A strike for cause means that as a potential juror you have made known a bias that excludes you. 

A peremptory strike means a lawyer can use these for any reason other than race. 

As a note, you can be a juror on a criminal trial or a civil trial. 

A criminal trial means a jury of 12 people. A civil trial includes a jury of at least six people. 

What Happens If You Ignore Your Summons?

So, finally, what if you think you'll skip your jury summons?

Again, like many of the details of jury duty, what happens to you depends on where you live. For example, in some places, if you don't appear, a bench warrant may be issued. Then, if you were to get pulled over, as an example, for a routine traffic stop, you could be arrested. 

The best thing you can do, if you think you have a valid reason to miss jury duty, is to show up and tell the judge. If you just ignore it you could find yourself in a fair amount of trouble. If you go and explain your situation you may be able to leave.

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