AIBU to to expect to be excused from jury duty?! Request to be excused denied!😱

[TotallyScrewed]

Like many others the last 10 months or so has been an absolute shitshow😅 Partner and I both work, have been homeschooling a 7 year old and we have two preschoolers who’ve been at home with us for long stretches of time when nursery is shut.

Now I’ve been called for jury duty!!!😱 I thought, well, SURELY my request for excusal will be approved!

• I’m homeschooling
• When nursery is open the little ones need collecting at 3 and I am the only one who can do it (no family nearby and husband works late)
• I’m also a university lecturer slap bang in the middle of term. I know work is supposed to give you time off for this but I would feel bad for my students (especially the dissertation ones!) suddenly disappearing on them!!!

I explained all these things and my request for excusal was refused!!! I’m quite shocked to be honest. I do totally understand the importance of jury duty and in normal times I would be so happy to oblige but I’m already barely keeping my head above water as it is😭😭😭

Has anyone successfully been excused and if so on what grounds?!

Also, vote away!
IABU: There’s nothing special about you, do your bloody jury duty.
IANBU: You’ve suffered enough and should be excused😂

I really don't know how they expect some people to do it at the moment. I have 2 small children, the youngest is with me all the time, I'm a sahm so no nursery and we don't have any child care. I would have to beg friends to look after him, but we are in a pandemic so no one would. I think they need to be understanding to that at the moment.

I was excused last june because I had two children at home (homeschooled) and one yr1 going into school. My husband was working full time from home. I said I couldn't find alternative childcare. They might be bit stricter now because of backlog. Good luck!

KyotoRose:

I’m in a very similar circumstance to you, and would be mortified in normal conditions to be called for jury service, never mind at present.

Why on earth would you be mortified to be called for jury duty?! There's no shame attached, it's a civic duty.

I asked for mine to be deferred which was ok, never heard anything since.

I was excused 12 years ago.
Two young children, DH worked 50 miles away and left at 7am and home at 7pm, parents in another country.
No-one to look after children.
DH has done in 3 times in the same period!

Ask to defer but don’t try to get out of it altogether. You seem sensible and we need sensible people on juries!
My DM did hers knowing that there was a chance that her life would be in danger as a juror ( think gangsters, somewhere notorious for jurors being threatened/ hurt) and when we tried to persuade her to try to come up with an excuse she told us she felt she had to do it as She was smart, educated and not bigoted in any way, and not a fan of the gangsters or scared of them, so owed it to the victims families.

OP, I was called for jury duty a few weeks ago. I returned the form to say that I wanted to be excused due to childcare / covid issues and was excused by email. I'm in Dublin however. I needed to send copies of my children's birth certs.

It would have to be really seriously ill. Colleagues have supervised from their hospital beds before - including ones who have eventually died. Students have been handed on for different reasons, but except in a small number of cases, there has been disruption and unhappy students as a result. Often the notice period that academics are required to give is longer than most so that there is plenty of lead-up if they leave - students are often given the choice to follow them if they wish.

When I was an undergraduate, I had a tutor who was in hospital and he taught us over several weeks in the doctor's on-call room adjacent to the ward. He later died and, that term, we were sent each week on the train to various people in his field all around the country, who had kindly agreed to teach us in those horrible circumstances.

I’ve got colleagues, friends and MIL and my DF who are actually bored sitting at home. They’re invariably the ones without young kids. The courts could ask for volunteers before actually causing chaos to other people’s lives.

I was called for jury duty when ds was 1. I happened to mention it to the GP when I was being seen about suspected PND and she just made a phone call there and then. That was 15 years ago never been called since.

I received a letter calling mr for jury duty a couple of days after I gave birth, so was excused due to new baby. I was then called again about 4 years later, attended for 2 days but wasn’t selected so dismissed

Agree that it is your civic duty. I find it depressing that women are giving minor reasons such as inconvenience and it may be harrowing.... It sounds as if they are back in the 19th century and as delicate females they must be shielded from all things unpleasant.

Who should step up to the plate? We are not asked to do much to contribute to civilised society, and people citing “inconvenience” is frankly selfish and pathetic.

I have done jury service twice. I deferred once as I had a baby, but I still did it other times and I have all the excuses: dh working away, no family yada yada. And everyone I know agrees it is really interesting. The only bugger is when you don’t get a case and have to go home!

YABVU.

So your time is more precious and difficult than anyone else’s? Oh someone else can do it, too much hassle for me. If everyone thought the same as you, criminals would have a free pass to do what they want and get away with it! No law and order, no justice.

If you are summoned for jury service, you are legally obliged to attend unless you have a good excuse ..... oh sorry, had shit time due to COVID - yes and the whole country including the Judge - NOT a good excuse. Can’t get child picked up - you have a husband, and presumably friends to help - NOT a good excuse. I’m homeschooling - yeh so’s everyone! 😂 - NOT a good excuse. I’m working, I know work has to give me time off, but ... there you go then - NOT a good excuse.

Do your duty OP.

Agree that the courts should properly finance the costs of jury service if they want truly representative juries - and provide childcare. We are in a pandemic and the woman has small children - she can't pull child care out of her arse. And I don't see why her DH should have to use holiday time - he wasn't called and won't be able to reclaim that time from work.
People like me should be doing jury service - my DH can WFH and our youngest is 13, so childcare not a problem. People on trial deserve jurors who can concentrate, not people worried about their DC or work.
I feel really sorry for the OP. Hope you can defer. If not, I'd definitely turn up with the toddlers in tow. The court should provide childcare on site, so mother's aren't excluded from what is an important service.

‘ The courts could ask for volunteers before actually causing chaos to other people’s lives.’

There are so many reasons why this wouldn’t work I don’t know where to start...

@PeachPiePip

I’ve got colleagues, friends and MIL and my DF who are actually bored sitting at home. They’re invariably the ones without young kids. The courts could ask for volunteers before actually causing chaos to other people’s lives.

That's a terrible idea, this would make juries less representative of their community because they would be skewed towards older, white people. The point of it being a pool of everyone is that the selection process is not biased in favour of those with time on their hands. Asking volunteers would automatically raise the amount of jurists who had already made their mind up that they were going to find people guilty before they had been selected for a trial.

I got excused as I’d suffered a stillbirth 3 months before and my ability to concentrate was severely impaired.

frickin .... how does the OP seem sensible when her excuses are so lame? 🙄

@GCAcademic

Can you get your work to write a letter? I'm also an academic and if I were to be called for jury duty during term time there wouldn't be anyone else in my department who could cover the specialist teaching and supervision I do.

I’m an academic, I have been excused due to teaching duties but was asked again quite soon afterwards and attended. I have colleagues who have had the same experience. Someone asked earlier what would happen if an academic fell ill, how would their work be covered? The answer is it can be a nightmare if someone with very specialist teaching falls sick. I have been in the situation of putting together the second half of a final year module when a colleague was too ill to advise us or give access to materials. We called in favours from industrial contacts, found staff with expertise in adjacent fields who could stretch to deliver a couple of lectures on a topic and some of us rapidly boned up on things to stay one step ahead of the students. Setting the exam was very hard. If I fell ill there is nobody in our department who could deliver my course, I’ve spent 30 years building my background knowledge.

Why can’t your husband book annual leave to care for the children?

Did you ask to be excused or deferred?

Why do people always say stupid shit like get a friend to help out with childcare? We are in a pandemic - few people are willing to have someone else's kids in their house all day for several weeks and increase their own risk because the mother is in court with strangers every day. Also, said friends are likely to be homeschooling their own kids and working themselves.

I got excused for childcare reasons. They offered to pay for a carer, but I told them I didn’t want to do that.

I did however tell them that I was quite happy to do my duty at some point in the future, I didn’t just refuse.

Do try to get a letter from HR.

A young man at my office was doing jury service. We were struggling to do without him but I have an over developed sense of public duty and decided we could muddle through for two weeks. He then got called up for a six week trial. He explained that his work wouldn’t possibly be able to manage without him for that long, but the official took one look at this baby-faced lad in trackie bottoms and a somewhat scruffy and laid back demeanour and told him he was having a laugh and should suck it up. When he came back to the office to tell me I hit the roof but HR wrote a magic letter saying “yes I know he looks like he’s the junior trainee fries cooker at KFC but he’s actually a very highly educated and skilled professional in a small department and no we can’t possibly spare him for six weeks”. Worked like a charm.

So weird how this works. I got called and it was a difficult time at work too, so I was excused. A few years later the same thing happened, at the same time (like you my work is cyclical) and I called them to explain and ask if there was any chance it could be put back by a few weeks and the guy said "oh don't worry, I'll just take you off this time too". I was quite happy to do it as I'd already been excused once but it seemed no big deal at all. Seems completely arbitrary. Call them and see what they say?