I’ve been summoned as a juror twice in >20 years of eligibility. They have a number you call when the date comes to see if you actually have to appear or not; the first time, I didn’t have to go at all. The second time, I did have to appear; I sat in a waiting room with about 20 other people for an hour, then we were all told we could go home.

Overall, shitty experience.

I got a summons during Covid, first summons I ever got, and haven’t gotten one sense. I was in my mid 30s, I kind of wanted to go just to see it for myself at least once but I’m an organ transplant recipient and I felt it was too risky to be out and about during Covid so my transplant clinic wrote me an excuse not that it wasn’t medically appropriate for me to attend and I was excused.

I think you always go back into the pool regardless of the outcome of your summons.

Canadian here. Got summoned a few years ago. I applied for excusal on account of my autism and lack of transport to get to the courthouse which was in another city.

I have diagnosis documents for proof if needed but they never asked me. My request was approved and I never had to go.

Gotten summons by mail twice. Both times I was way out of town, so no chance of attending, they let me off.

My doctor sent them a note suggesting an anxious autistic man with anxiety disorders who’s prone to panic attacks probably shouldn’t be a juror. They excused me.

I’ve gotten called multiple times and picked to sit on three. First two times I was picked the trial blew up and they scrapped things the first day. A lost VHS juror training tape (someone had moved it from the VCR… this was after VHS was a rarity) and a Juror that lied and claimed they didn’t know one of the witnesses and had contaminated the jury, the judge was pissed. Threatened to hold them in contempt really throw the book at the juror who lied and wasted everyone’s time and tried to pervert the legal system.

Third time got paid nothing (I believe pay kicks in after a certain amount of time? possibly 2 weeks I haven’t looked in years? and uh it isn’t much) disruptive to the schedule for a week but ones civic duty and I sure wouldn’t want jurors who are aren’t paying attention etc. if I was ever on trial. So of course multiple days into the case a witness takes the stand and I recognize them. Hadn’t recognized the name was an undergrad in my graduate department years prior. I’m freaking out and wait for their testimony to finish then raise my hand and am asked to approach the judges bench. They call over the various lawyers for prosecution and defense. In hushed whispers I explain the situation. They all interrogated me about the nature of our relationship and agreed to continue the trial. We lost one person along the way from the jurors and then the final day another person failed to appear. This meant both alternates got to serve on the jury as opposed to having to sit through the entire trial and not get to decide in deliberations. Have two for that exact reason. So it was a disruptive week I got a story out of. One of my fellow jurors claimed to have once served on a 6 month trial where they got sequestered in a hotel with no outside news… a rarity but it can happen.

USA

I’ve served on two juries.

The first was for a traffic accident. The parties involved had already decided on the amount of money that was involved, we just had to decide the percentage of fault of each party.

The second was a criminal case in which two people broke into a restaurant and held employees prisoner to rob the restaurant. They were convicted.

I’ve been summoned twice since. The first time I went in and was excused. The second time I was told I didn’t have to appear the night before.

Here in my county you have to fill out and submit a questionnaire. One of the questions is whether you can give a police officers testimony the same weight as any other person.

My response recently has been that I would believe a police officer less than any other person. My reasoning being that anyone who has been paying attention to current events and doesn’t believe that all cops lie would be too stupid to serve on a jury.

I don’t mind serving on a jury, but it’s looking like answering the questions honestly means I won’t be selected again.

I once got summoned while I was in the hospital being treated for Leukemia. They gave me an exemption and some get well wishes.

Ive been summoned a few times but only picked once for a single day trial. I showed up at 8am and drank shitty coffee and ate snacks while watching HGTV on a big screen in the jury room. About 2 or 3 hours later the judge came in to tell us that the defendent had taken a plea deal, so we could go home. I got a check for $12 some weeks later and don’t have to serve again for a year or two.

All in all not too bad, and my work paid me my full wage for the day for doing my civic duty.

The summons prior to that was for a grand jury, which I didnt realize at the time and also got the dates mixed up so I didnt actually show up. I really lucked out here because for the grand jury, you have to serve for two weeks straight. When I realized I had the days wrong I was able to call and get it sorted out which lead to the above summons in which I was called, but according to the law, I technically could have been thrown in jail over missing the summons.

I served on Grand Jury in NY state. 2 days a week for 8 weeks, listened to the evidence and decided if there was enough to charge/not charge. Really interesting experience.

I’m 47, I’ve been summoned twice, but never selected to actually serve.

Not yet, but everyone I know that were summoned, total 3 instances, never actually served.

I was summoned three times in a month, and then haven’t gotten another one since then. Normally the triple summons wouldn’t be possible, because each summons has an exemption for if you were recently summoned and got rejected during voir dire… But I was summoned first at the city level, then the county level, then the city level again. And the exemption didn’t apply at the city level.

Basically, the city summoned me. I showed up. And then the city went “oh actually, every single case we had scheduled today went to a plea bargain. So we’re not going to do voir dire, because we don’t have any cases. You can just go home.”

The next week, I had the county summon. I showed up, went through voir dire, and got rejected because I wasn’t afraid to talk. Fun fact, most of the time during voir dire, the people who get picked are the ones who just quietly sit there. Knowing more about you makes it more likely for one side or the other to reject you.

The third week, I got called back to the city court. Since we hadn’t done voir dire last time, the “if you were already summoned recently and got rejected” exemption didn’t apply. Because without voir dire, I was never actually rejected. So I had to go back to city court again, just to get rejected in voir dire.

I nearly missed rent that month. “But wait, your employer typically keeps paying you even when you’re at jury duty, right?” I was a freelancer at the time. And every single summons landed in the middle of a week-long gig. So I basically had to cancel those three gigs (for being forced to miss a single day), and didn’t work for almost three weeks. Which meant I was basically three weeks short on paychecks.

Don’t try to get out of it. It’s the most power you will ever get as a single citizen in the US. You can make the difference in someone else’s life, and it may be a matter of life and death based on a law that you don’t even think should exist. If you ever have a trial by jury, you don’t want to be judged by a group of people who couldn’t think of a good-enough excuse to get out of it, you want smart people who will potentially put their foot in the door between you and unjust laws.

Read up on jury nullification. Try to get on a jury. Don’t tell them anything they don’t ask directly. Dress like anything but who they think they don’t want on their jury during the voir dire process.

I was summoned once, but no juries were selected that day. My younger brother was the foreperson of a grand jury.

I’ve been summoned twice in the past 7 years and neither time did I actually even get to the point where they interview to decide if I would have been a juror.

First time I got summons was like a month after I moved to a different city for work and I let them know and they said okay you don’t need to come.

Second was like last year and I accepted the summons but then got a notification that I was no longer needed as the trial wouldn’t happen. I assume plea deal or something.