Offs, just called for jury service

[BlackeyedSusan]

Filled in the form (wrote all over it randomly as the box was too small) asking to be excused due to disability.

If not they may get an autistic mess who can't process things.

Court adjourned while we retrieve a juror from under the bench.

I just wrote autistic, anxiety, won't be able to cope with any of this and they excused me no problem, or dismissed? Idk what the technical term was but I wasn't needed to turn up or rearrange etc just a straight you don't have to do this.

Good to hear. It's the last thing I need right now.

I wrote list of health conditions/disabilities and was excused from jury service. I hope you're excused @BlackeyedSusan 😊

Autistic here...ironically, the fact that I was obviously very different from the other jurors (largely unemotional about the whole thing, as well as being focused on the facts to the point of obsession) led to me being foreman in both of the trials in my jury service.

How you do with it, if your request is denied, will depend very much on the kind of trial you get landed with. Most of them are actually pretty easy and interesting, but there was another trial going on at the same time as ours which had been going on for six months and...just looking at their jury as they hung around, even I could tell it was hard on them.

One thing that's worth noting is that even if your request gets denied, you still have the opportunity to request to be excused at any point in the trial on the grounds of your ability to be fair, impartial and competent. Judges will take an extremely dim view of it later in the trial (given that they'd basically have to start again), but there's a decent chance early on because they can just pick someone else from the pool. We actually tried to do that with one of our jurors - a young lad who actually said, "I don't care whether he did it or not, I just want to see what it's like to send someone to jail". Didn't work in that case, because he lied when the judge asked him if he felt competent to reach a fair verdict, but the fact that he asked the question shows that it's an option.

Hopefully you get the outcome you want. I've had a few friends go through it and they seem quite understanding for life circumstances and health issues.

Don't know if I'm an autistic outlier but I'd love to serve on a jury. I've never been called but I think I'll bite their hand off - I'm fascinated by the law and the working of the court system. All that structure and formality is ideal for me. Have thought about training as a magistrate but I didn't do well on the online 'test case' and it put me off, so maybe best to just stick to observing and doing my citizenly duty when summoned.

I felt the same way about it. As a lawyer friend of mine said...it's simultaneously one of the most interesting and most boring things you'll ever do. The actual cases are usually pretty interesting to dig into, but the waiting around...yeesh. There's hours and hours of it, sometimes even days, for two weeks.

I actually quite enjoyed my jury service ( apart from being pregnant at the time and the benches being so uncomfortable), though did find the deliberation hard as it seems some other people can't follow logic.

Been excused. Which is right for now. May when the kids have left, and mum's not just died...

I can't watch a whole TV programme without losing attention so not much chance of following a case. Depends on your auditory processing as well.