<p>My daughter attends Boston University and was called to jury duty this week. Apparently MA has laws that allow students who are legal residents of other states to be called for jury duty in their state. She was forced to miss 3 days of school including many lectures and 2 labs. The jury commissioners office tells us that her professors have to excuse her absence-- which we understand. However she now has all that lecture material to find and learn on her own as well as 2 labs to make up-- on her own --without her lab groups. Just fitting these extra sessions into an already packed scheduled is a problem. She also missed an extra help tutoring session with one of her professors and has an exam in that class this week. She is at BU on a scholarship and must maintain a 3.2GPA-- which she is already stuggling with. She spoke with the judge the first day about her hardship and the judge would not release her or any of the other students there. We feel that this kind of interference in their education poses a real hardship and should not be allowed. We encourage parents to contact their legislators and complain!</p>
<p>Mass. law permits people to postpone their jury duty service for up to 12 months. Perhaps your daughter should have postponed her's to a date soon after her term finals. My wife was recently called with a date coinciding with a business trip. She easily got her date rescheduled and will be serving early next month.</p>
<p>rdkm, Just curious, how did they get your daughter's name and Boston address?</p>
<p>We live in Florida, and my daughter goes to school in St. Louis. She received a notice from here that she was called for jury duty. I simply called and informed them that she went to school out of state, and the matter was taken care of.</p>
<p>Nope, sorry. Jury duty is a pain. It's a pain for everybody. The salesperson who will miss 3 days of knocking on doors, the self-employed consultant who will miss three days of work, the CEO who will miss a meeting with an important customer, the stay at home parent who has to figure out daycare for 3 days, and the student who misses 3 days of classes. All of these people face real hardships when called for jury duty, but it's still their civic duty. Call me a pollyanna all you want, but as the in-house counsel I've been asked to help too many people "get out" of jury duty. I tell them all (CEO included) that I won't do it, and to call the clerk of court to check out their options for a delay or re-schedule. If, God forbid, your daughter were the victim of a crime in Boston, or has the need to file a civil action against somebody, do you want a jury made up of just those people who couldn't figure out a way to get out of jury duty?</p>
<p>I just finished serving on a grand jury duty - 2 days a week for 8 weeks. Everytime I thought about what a pain it was, and every time I got back to my mountains of work on my desk, I just reminded myself about all the national guardsmen who've been called up to serve in Iraq. Then I count my blessings!</p>
<p>"rdkm, Just curious, how did they get your daughter's name and Boston address?"</p>
<p>Mass schools are required to submit this information to the state.</p>
<p>I have plenty of friends at BU who had to go through it. I understand that it is a pain--and I realize how packed one's schedule can get--but it is everyone's civic duty and plenty of other people have served and lived. We students live in the state for 9 months out of the year and comsume its resources just as any other resident does.</p>
<p>I believe they got my daughters address through the school as everyone in her dorm got notices within the last few weeks. And my daughter did postpone it once..the first notice she got was on a week full of exams. But when you postpone you have no way of knowing when the next assignment will be. Our major concern is her grades and I don't feel that she should have to risk her grades thereby loosing her scholarship for jury duty. Of all the people who showed up for duty on day one....many were given hardship excuses..and dismissed..such as the mother who needed day care and anyone who would sustain hardships..but the students were made to stay. She had to serve 3 days. The other issue I object to is as a LEGAL resident of AZ she is licensed and registered to vote here --which makes her eligible for jury duty here. Many of her friends were summoned here in AZ last summer. Should students really have to serve in two different states.</p>
<p>rdkm:</p>
<p>Your D should take up the matter with the profs. Making up for missed classes for whatever reason is a very common occurence. Make-up exams are given all the time.<br>
Since your D has not been called to jury duty in AZ, that is not an issue here.</p>
<p>Cross-posted with Blossom, and agree totally.</p>
<p>rd--- your daughter needs to immediatly contact her advisor or academic dean and explain the situation. Colleges deal with this all the time; your D is not the only student to have to make up work, and is not the only student whose aid is dependent on a GPA benchmark. Don't sit and stew; the deans will know how to diplomatically inform her professors that she's going to need to help, get a TA assigned to work with her on her lab stuff for the next few weeks, perhaps give her an extension, in order to get caught up.</p>
<p>I have family members in Mass. who have served on sequestered juries for capital crimes. Yes, it is a monstrous pain. Do you want people who shoot police officers wandering down Commenwealth Avenue? My guess is no... and so your daughter did the right thing by serving, and now she'll do the right thing by getting some intervention to help her get through the semester with her GPA intact.</p>
<p>blossom ...thank you for the advice. She has been struggling with this GPA requirement and this was just one more obstacle she really didn't need. Also hard to listen to the panic in your kid's voice from across the country.</p>
<p>One additional note worth mentioning --I have also spoken to our Jury Commissioners Office here in AZ. Out of state students attending college here in AZ who recieve a jury summons need only send in a copy of some record of their legal residence (such as a voter reg card or Drivers License) and they are released from jury duty in AZ and removed from the list.</p>
<p>These kids are NOT Mass state residents. Does anyone know of any other state that requires OOS folks to sit for their juries?</p>
<p>I pulled up some old articles in the Globe, and the legislators who sponsored this legislation said, essentially said "we can't get enough of our own state residents to show up for jury duty, so the logical conclusion (for them) was to put that burden onto OOS visitors. (Obviously, an easy bill to pass since the kids don't vote in Mass while being a resident of their home state.) Moreover, asking a kid to reschedule (for summer?) puts an unfair financial burden on them if they have to stay over after classes are done.</p>
<p>Welll, yes, but these kids spend more time in MA than in their parents' home state (I use this term because many students do not return to the state they left to go to college). Students constitute a very large proportion of the population in Cambridge and Boston.
If they had to serve jury duty in their home state, it would actually put more of a burden on them than if they did it in MA because the likelihood that they would have to travel back in the middle of the school year would be that much higher. The alternative--exempting OOS students from jury duty is to exempt a huge proportion of the population from this civic duty.</p>
<p>There are many small towns across the country where the local college doubles the size of the town for 9 months a year. Take, for example, the state directly to the North -- Hanover goes from 6,000 residents in August, to 10,000+ in September. But, New Hampshire law is clear -- anyone called for JD must be a resident of that locality.</p>
<p>Of course, any student that re-registers to vote in MA should be fair game to the local JD pool. Otherwise, this is just a bad public policy, IMO. The colleges in MA provide for a phenomenal economic and social engine, and the state should not hinder that growth and development. These students are are not voters in MA -- a little like taxation w/o represenation, which, of course, is what the MA legislature planned. </p>
<p>Again, are there other states that require non-residents to serve on juries? </p>
<p>btw: if called by the Calif courts, students can defer until summer break.</p>
<p>Bluebayou:
That's assuming that the CA students will return to CA for summer break. </p>
<p>Is there a reason why only voters should serve on juries? I'm not sure what the logic is here.</p>
<p>of course you are correct. But, my point of view is that only RESIDENTS of that locale should serve on juries. One way to establish residency is to register to vote, or obtain a local drivers license, etc. But, just my opinion -- add in three bucks and we can share a latte at Starbucks. :D</p>
<p>I'd like to take you up on that latte! :) I still don't understand why legal residents as opposed to actual residents should be the only ones to serve on local juries. Students would be crazy to take a local drivers' license and pay MA insurance (especially given the limited driving they are likely to do while attending college). They might consider registering to vote locally, however, since the outcome of some local votes are likely to affect them (such as whether to serve on jury :))</p>
<p>If you postpone, do you get to pick another month that you would be available to serve?</p>
<p>Can only speak for CA--</p>
<p>D is going to college in MA; hasn't gotten any jury summons from MA; did get one from CA--but CA excuses you if you are domiciled out of state at the time.</p>
<p>In CA, you are able to delay your jury service to a more convenient time. I delayed my service until the summer (when I don't have to pick up kids from school). I have a friend who delays till the Monday before Thanksgiving. Not many people want to serve around the holidays--but then not many cases go out for trial during that short week either.</p>