Jury Duty

Yeah. Not so much.

I was talking to my SIL Diane this morning, (who just happened to be watching my other SIL's child so that she could attend jury duty this morning) when I was reminded of this little fact:

Somewhere, sometime, I may be in trouble.




Here's the sitch:
A few months ago I received a summons for jury duty. Jury duty actually interests me. Trial lawyer was not a far second to Psychologist in my choices for course of study in school. (Perhaps because of my mother's frequent suggestion of this during my teenage years - but that's another story.) I respect our legal system and the judicial process that is a part of it.

However,
(Notice the big "however")

I received my summons smack in the middle of summer vacation, while I had all four kids (including my 1 year old, Isaac) at home with me.


I know these summons are supposedly randomly generated, but my name has been randomly generated several (at least 3) times over the past couple years. More than average, no?


So, I respectfully (and pain-in-the-butt-fully) followed the outlined process of providing the reason for my excuse from service in writing to the proper authority. Truly, a mother of four children - all of whom are currently on summer break, with a husband who works on straight commission, should fall into the "caretaker of small children" category, right?

Well, all paperwork was submitted on time, and appearance day came and went without a problem.

A couple of days after appearance date came a rejection letter stating that my excuse from service was not granted and that I was scheduled to appear for duty (two days earlier).

"Hah! Good one."


I would not intentionally shirk my civil duty, but I don't remember a county representative showing up at my house for babysitting duty on that date.
I DO, however, remember the lady on the news who was arrested for leaving her kids at home alone.


I suppose there was the option of taking the kids with me.
Someone in the County Courthouse should not have passed their drug screening, if they seriously thought that was a good idea.


I guess there was the option of imposing on someone else to watch my kids for me.
But you see, I have trouble calling on people to watch my kids so that I can go on vacation - which, sorry, I would rather do than jury duty no matter how interesting.
I will appoint a jury duty sitter when the county issues babysitter summons, or in-house daycare along with the jury duty summons.

Or, maybe I will just be randomly generated again. Maybe I will even be randomly generated at a time that doesn't happen to fall within the 10 week period all the kids are home from school.

I would be happy to show up for jury duty- I would not even pretend I am crazy or a bigot or any other thing that scares the attorneys into immediately relieving people from service.

But not with four young children at home in the middle of summer vacation.
It is just as well that I got my mail late. It saved me some unnecessary stress.


Still, there is that looming question:
What happens if you fail to show up for jury duty?


Well, perhaps I will have a go at my trial lawyering skills yet.