This is certainly not true in Los Angeles. It used to be that jurors could be excused for a wide variety of reasons, including sole support, key employee, etc., but not any more. Now, if you are ambulatory, you can be summoned to any court in this area (and it is a big area).
In exchange for this restrictive policy, they are flexible about scheduling and persons who do have business or family related situations can request a one day call, where they must assign you to a jury panel on that day, or you are off for a year. This might sound good, but they will almost always assign you to a panel. They also take finances into account. There is no requirement for employers to pay anything for jury duty and all the court pays is mileage after the first day. If you are self employed or your employer does not pay any jury days, you are assigned to trials that are usually scheduled to be completed in 5 to 7 "judicial" days. There are usually only four judicial days - where the judge is trying cases as opposed to hearing motions, etc. - in a week. Folks with no financial issues get the trials that take months. Last time, I was on a panel, but after the 2nd day, it was clear that just the jury selection was going to take four days, so the judge released me from the panel. While I hated missing work (actually, I worked at night), I had never witnessed the process at work in a criminal case before. I was very impressed by the way the judge handled the court. Cary Gordon The Cherry Hill Company At 10:20 AM 3/10/2003 -0800, you wrote: >You are quite correct - at least in the state of California (probably >relatively the same) - you can legally decline a Jury summons if it will be >a financial burden because your employer does not reimburse you for the time >(not all of them do). You can't just ignore the summons though, you have to >call the appropriate phone numbers and fill out the appropriate paper work. > >Ian Skinner >Blood Source >Sacramento, CA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=5 Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
