<p>It’s not fair to judge the motives of everyone who wants to “get out” of jury duty. I’m scheduled to serve soon and will serve, but I am self-employed and do not get paid when on jury duty and it can hurt my business in terms of continuity with clients, etc. If I was a single parent and/or the only person in my family working, and if the money was more than we could afford to give up, I would be tempted to try to “get out” of jury duty. I’m not sure my anxiety over not working would make me a good juror. </p>
<p>In my state it has become very, very difficult to “get out” of jury duty. When I was younger (and worked part-time), you could get out if you did not have child care for young kids. I did not have the kind of child care arrangements that allowed me to commit from 9:00 to 5:00 and I did send in a request for excuse. Now, the state has made it so that only those with nursing infants can ask for an excuse. That’s ridiculous, in my opinion. Many, many stay-at-home parents or part-time working parents do not have that kind of coverage for their kids. We don’t all have a family member or trustworthy person who is available to babysit day after day (at no charge) while we do jury duty. So, as far as I’m concerned, my state has created situations where people will try to get out because it costs them too much or they don’t have reasonable options. Also, in my state, virtually no one is exempt, which is fine, but I honestly think that there are a few people – those who perform heart surgeries on infants, for example – who can serve society better by not serving. They are few and far between, to be sure, but I think the case can occasionally be made. Imagine if you were the parent of a baby who needed life-saving surgery and your surgeon was saying, “Well, I’m on call for jury duty. We’ll just have to take it day by day and if I get on a case, we can try to get someone less trained/not on your plan, or we can hope for the best.”</p>