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😂

As paid work is covered but nothing else is.

I'm not sure it really is covered, some employers will still pay but that is in the minority and the costs you can claim from the court are tiny. I have insurance to cover against loss of earnings if I was called but at certain times I'd still want to avoid as it could lead to me not being able to deliver what has been promised or loss of contracts/future business.

Regarding civic duty, tbh I'm not sold on jury trials being the best way to determine guilt.

Say you're prejudiced against all races and religions

@Okokokbear

My mum recently had to do jury duty. She still works very part time but also has caring responsibilities for parents and grandchildren. I do think jury duty does unfairly penailies people who have unpaid responsibilitoes. As paid work is covered but nothing else is. Feels very male dominant view.

If course jury duty is important but why are we asking people who are now homeschooling or caring for people to do it now? When there are people available like me who don't ahev additional responsibilities at this point.

It's unfair on everyone, especially those who are hourly paid but earning more than minimum wage as the 'allowance' is capped really low. Unfair witnesses get full reimbursement but jurors don't.

What would they have done if it was the DH who was called up?

However two preschoolers middle of a pandemic I'd go down the stress route. People are at breaking point.

As others have said, deferral is your best option. I had to jump through a lot of childcare hoops to do mine (twice in 5 years) but if they routinely excused for caring reasons they wouldn't get a representative cross-section of society as there would be so many women excused.

Mine (the first one anyway, it was old hat by the second time) was one of the most interesting experiences of my life.

As awful as jury duty is, someone has to do it. Your youngest are at nursery and you have a 7 year old that your dh can support from home. It’s hard, I know, but if you can do your bit for society, then I think you should. Hopefully it will only be for two weeks.

I would love to do it as well. Although my mum did it and it sounded like a lot of sitting around reading books. She was never actually used in the end.

I'd love to do jury duty, I wish you could sign up for it.

Write back and say you're really keen, the justice system is far to lenient and are always letting criminals off.

I have served on a jury before and, unfortunately, it just made me feel that juries are a total waste of time and money. If juries must be the way forward, then there would be much more 'justice' in them if they were composed of lawyers and those with a law degree, working in legal posts. My experience was that the law and evidence was dismissed by the more vocal jurors who had already made up their mind and were easily won over by the personality of the barrister. There's also loads of bullying by those who want their view to be the 'winning' won, and others who allow themselves to be bullied because they just want the fucking trial overwith so they can get on with their usual responsibilities. The particular case I was a juror on was then dismissed because the jurors didn't agree on the verdict. What a pointless waste of time - victims will have to go through the trauma of giving evidence again, witnesses memories will become less clear etc.*

This is what i.imagine a lot of cases are like, I know one person who did it who was intelligent, paid attention and acted exactly as you'd want a jury to act, whereas someone else was sent home as not needed but said that the defendant 'looked really dodgy and like he definitely did it' so not exactly impartial. Although the case was aggravated rape so given the extremely high threshold for even getting to trial he probably was guilty.

You have my sympathy, right now during this pandemic is not an ideal time for many what with having kids at home and with many people already financially down.
Dp has been called and starts next week, its a complete pain as its 45min drive away, the car is being unreliable at present and work have refused to pay him so he can only try and claim the maximum loss of earnings allowance, petrol, parking and food allowance, all of which you cant get back till after the trial has finished. Daily we worked out its going to cost around £21 for expenses so we will be around £200 down until he reclaims the allowances(assuming its a 2 wk stint) We have a personal loan so we are looking to take a payment holiday this month to ease the pressure abit, hopefully it gets approved. We are crossssing fingers the car holds out other the alternative bus journey is almost 2hrs to get there!

It’s not really want we need at this moment but there’s not much can be done, they are quite strict on allowing deferring at the moment, especially due to the covid backlog.

@FrickinA

‘ 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...

I agree. Simply getting volunteers for jury duty has all sorts of implications. It's a civic duty and people seem to have such limited awareness of that nowadays.

The OP might reasonably ask to defer but I think she has no grounds to be excused.

Yabu asking for excusal rather than a deferral

To be fair, when I was called and cited childcare reasons, I expected a deferral and then was excused... presumably they didn’t expect my circs to change any time soon. This was a few years ago though so maybe things have changed/it depends on where you are?

My FIL was called, took a train and turned up... they sent half of them away (including him) for no obvious reason

My dad was excused as my mum worked for the CPS, it was a conflict of interest so he got out of it.

A bit extreme but if you got yourself a criminal record you would be exempt forever 😂

So many reasons people don’t want to do it but IMHO if you want the right to vote, then you also have to e willingly to do this civic duty if called upon.

Of course you can’t do jury duty with all that going on.

Just defer.

They send people home for many good reasons. They have to overbook jurors because some people are ill/don’t turn up. Also each jury of 12 is chosen randomly from 14 jurors. Plus lots of trials don’t take place, even if scheduled, as there are hitches with evidence or witnesses or quite often the accused enters a last-minute guilty plea to get a deal.

The system is a bit inefficient but I suppose if there were easier options they would have tried them.

My manager had jury service but we were short staffed that week and our company told him to differ it. This was back in November and he is next due May. I’d possibly try and differ x

I know it is annoying and difficult regardless of who is called, but I think it does reflect the lip service but lack of genuine consideration on behalf of the government when it comes to the tight juggling that parents are already doing, being really strict about this now is just another stick to beat them with. Kids aren’t an optional accessory you can leave at home and the rules on childcare/mixing/bubbles and shielding grandparents make everything really difficult. Most people only get called to do jury service once or twice in a lifetime and the majority of my life (pre and post infant stages) I would be fine to do jury service, there are a lot of people to draw from. I think flexible deferral is the answer.

@Rupertbeartrousers

I agree, I think homeschooling in a pandemic with 2 working parents deserves consideration. It’s not as if you can get granny in to watch the kids.

There are plenty of people who are not in that situation.

Ask to defer
Cite mental health too if you are at your limits. I would be screwed if I were called on that basis alone.

But, there is no reason why your OH can't adjust his working pattern or take leave to pick up the small children to allow you to perform your civic duty. He'd have to if he were called.

@Rupertbeartrousers

I know it is annoying and difficult regardless of who is called, but I think it does reflect the lip service but lack of genuine consideration on behalf of the government when it comes to the tight juggling that parents are already doing, being really strict about this now is just another stick to beat them with. Kids aren’t an optional accessory you can leave at home and the rules on childcare/mixing/bubbles and shielding grandparents make everything really difficult. Most people only get called to do jury service once or twice in a lifetime and the majority of my life (pre and post infant stages) I would be fine to do jury service, there are a lot of people to draw from. I think flexible deferral is the answer.

@Rupertbeartrousers

I might have more sympathy if OP was a single parent

She says her DH can't look after the children because he works hard! That's no reason to excuse her

You could also say your politics are abolitionist and you would never vote to convict anyone.

The state should want people to willingly do jury service because it is so important. I don't really believe people are unwilling, I think most of us would be happy to contribute - mostly people are just worried about money and childcare. Enthusiastic participation isn't going to happen while people are having to find money upfront (which they might not have)to do their civic duty and not get back what it has truly cost them.
It's pretty outrageous that a judge can tell someone who posted up thread that being with their child when they have an operation isn't a good enough reason to not do jury service. That juror hasn't committed a crime, the state should have no right to dictate that they put jury service ahead of their child. And how does that serve the person on trial. Most parents would either just not turn up to court that day and take the consequences or if they were there, would not be giving their full attention.
People have lives and while civic duty is really important, there would be better results if the courts couldn't trample all over people's lives to achieve it.
I can't see what's wrong with having a list of volunteers in addition to being randomly called up.

Meanwhile I'm into my 7th decade, no school-age children, work for an employer that will pay my salary and in fact actively encourages us to do civic duty stuff, no criminal record, and never been called for jury service in my life. If they don't hurry up I'll be too old. Feeling a bit unwanted tbh.