This thread is an eye-opener. Surely courts must realize that a student can’t possibly miss weeks of class to serve on a jury? Has anyone heard of a college student having to serve jury duty while college is in session?
I worked in the Boulder courthouse and yes, we had students called. I remember one who was about 18 (he was from Boulder) and I don’t think it was a long trial, maybe a day or two. We also had one grad student. We rarely had students because they moved often and jury summons were not forwarded, many didn’t have their cars registered in Boulder, didn’t register to vote except in presidential election years. Boulder now has the ‘one day, one trial’ rule, and I doubt a student would be picked for a long trial during the school year.
I was wondering how,the OP’s kid even got the jury summons since it was sent to an address for a couple,of years ago.
MA allows you to log on and select another date within the next 12 months. My daughter (NEU student) selected a date right after spring semester finals (figuring it would give her time between spring and summer sessions and she would still be residing on campus in Boston). Ended up on co-op that semester, had a job in Boston and had no problem serving. BTW in MA you are not paid for jury duty, instead your employee (even hourly employee) is required to pay you for the day as if you had worked your regular hours. She was sent home after about 4 hours (no trials that day). Almost all of her friends have also been called to serve (and have managed to reschedule to a time that would work). Have you student check their mail often - I have witnessed kids returning from break and finding the notice in their mailbox.
@thumper1 Jury summons was forwarded to parents home address in Maryland.
That’s not uncommon.
@twoinanddone. It has happened multiple times in my family that one of us has been excused for a certain date, but called up the next cycle. When I asked how to handle my out-of-state student’s summons, I was told to write a letter, he’d be excused for a year, then called up the next. This is exactly what happened. Hubby was excused due to trial work on another case - excuse sent by employer. He was called next cycle. I have had commitments out of the country during for a summons date - excused for that date, called next cycle. Perhaps this is not flagging, but certainly the address was put into a recall pot. I still believe that when son was excused from service, the summons DH or I received in the next cycle was not random.
I have also been called when not registered to vote. Must have come from homeowners or address rolls. My non-citizen neighbors have also been called. (They were not welcome to serve!)
There are many variations in jury rules/norms throughout the country.
“Massachusetts resident here…
I would encourage every one to think of jury service as a positive experience, especially for a young person learning about the ways of the world. As mentioned above, one can postpone jury service up to a year and select a convenient day. I have served on a jury with college students. Chances are that they learned more from participating on the jury than they would in an average day of classes”
I’m an attorney. I think jury’s are extraordinarily important. But no. Just no. There is no way my engineering student kid could miss class for jury duty without messing up the entire semester. That’s ridiculous and punitive. I’d be ashamed of that law if I lived in Massachusetts and would work to get it changed.
They forwarded mail two years later?
Our jury summons here say very clearly on the envelopes that they are not to be forwarded.
@Thumper1 The address is 3yrs old, he goes to NEU so his 4th yr is junior year (freshman, sophomore, middler, junior, senior). He has lived at 4 addresses since then and I just checked the envelope and it doesn’t say anything about not forwarding.
I think if they didn’t forward mail they wouldn’t get a lot of college students and in Boston I guess that is a significant percentage of the population.
my kid moved. There was definitely a time limit on the forwarding of her mail. Definitely NOT years later.
@maya54, if your engineering student kid missed one day of classes it would screw up his whole semester? WTH happens if he comes down with the stomach bug or similar? What generally happens in MA is that you show up on the assigned day (or postponed assigned day to accommodate special circumstances) and if there is a possibliity of the trial lasting more than that one day they allow you to present information stating why you can’t do multiple days. I would think a college student would be exempted from a trial longer than the first day.
I am from MA and work at a hospital where we always have one NEU Coop student in our department. Many of them are from OOS. Almost all of our Coop students are called for Jury Duty. We have gotten used to it. They usually are just out for one day. Any some of them have deferred to when they are on Coop and not in school.
Yes, juries are extraordinarily important. It is unfortunate that so many people want to avoid jury service.
About two decades ago Massachusetts reformed its jury selection process. Prior to reform too many people (doctors, lawyers, college students…) were exempt from jury service. Those who were called for jury duty had to show up at the courthouse every weekday for about two weeks, whether or not they were needed for a jury. This old system was widely despised.
The reformed process exempts almost nobody between the ages of 18 and 65, registered to vote or not. Even the governor is eligible for jury duty. The key to making the reformed process work is allowing people to postpone up to a year to a weekday of their choice. Also, those called for jury duty are obligated for just one day a year (usually much less often), unless they are impaneled on a jury. No longer does anybody need too go to the courthouse for two weeks and wait around to see if they will be needed.
I am a college professor and have been called for jury duty several times over the decades. I have never missed teaching a class for jury duty. What I do is postpone my jury duty to the end of the semester, just after the last exam in my classes. My students can do the same. I never recommend that my student miss classes, but sometimes they do for illness, a family death, or a job interview. I work to accomodate legitimate absences.
In Massachusetts you can check online or by telephone the afternoon before your scheduled jury duty day to find out if you need to show up. Half the time you are not needed and will not be called for jury duty for at least another year.
If you do have to show up, bring some reading material or paperwork and be prepared to wait. The rules about cell phones and other internet connected devices are in the courtroom are in flux, so do not count on amusing yourself with the internet. I have graded exams while waiting. Students can read or work on problem sets.
Often prospective jurors wait for two or three hours and are dismissed without even stepping into the courtroom. Many defendants decide to take a plea bargain when confronted with the possibility of a jury trial.
About half the time the prospective jurors are called into the courtroom. Usually there are about three or four times as many prospective jurors than needed for the jury. The judge will ask about conflicts of interest and will hear prospective jurors who ask to be excused for hardship. Also the lawyers are allowed to exclude a few jurors from the panel and they are unlikely to want anybody who has demonstrated a grudge against the proceedings. The chance of winding up on a jury unwillingly is slim.
Jury service is a great civics lesson. I recommend it especially to college students.
@Momofadult , it sounded like you thought you and husband were called because your son asked to be deferred, that your address was ‘marked’ and they were going to keep calling in people from that address until some one showed up… If you are deferred, you are still in the cycle. Some places let you choose the week you want to come, but other jurisdictions just put you back in the hopper. That’s what happened to your son, and then your husband. They did not serve the first time, so remained in the current ‘pull’. When I work at the courthouse, they tried to exhaust one ‘pull’, calling all the people who had deferred until they needed another group and then they’d work through that group.
Jurisdictions use all kinds of methods to get names- voter registration, car registration (here that is done by county too), licenses, public services, real estate ownership. It sounds like in Mass every city sends in info. Sometimes court officers are sent out onto the street to pull in citizens and if they qualify (right county, district, 18 years old, citizen, not a convicted felon) they get conscripted right there. On their way to work, or their lunch hours.
I moved into a house in California where an elderly man had lived for 25 year. He received a summons for federal court in LA. That would have been a 2 hour commute for him. I just wrote ‘deceased’ on it and sent it back. No one ever showed up looking for him. He really was dead.
“I am a college professor and have been called for jury duty several times over the decades. I have never missed teaching a class for jury duty. What I do is postpone my jury duty to the end of the semester, just after the last exam in my classes. My students can do the same. I never recommend that my student miss classes, but sometimes they do for illness, a family death, or a job interview. I work to accomodate legitimate absences”
But you LIVE there. For many students they have to be out of the dorm 24 hrs after the last exam. To then have to deal with a place to stay fir jury duty is insane. Plenty of time for working adults to have jury duty in their lifetime. No need to haul non resident students in. It’s a bad law.
Agree Maya 54. My son got called and scheduled for day after last final at end of December. Did not get seated on a jury and then got to come home for winter break. Agree he would have had to get a hotel room or be homeless. He also has been called in our home state and took a date over spring break. It seems he should not be called in two different states.
Not all states are like Massachusetts and consider the college students ‘residents.’ In fact, I’d say more states do not consider the student a resident until the student does something to trigger the residency - register a car, or to vote, or get a DL, or have a year lease. I doubt many kids living in dorms are considered residents unless they declare they are. Mass is an exception.
You say adults have their whole lives to serve, so let the college kids off? How about the mothers who don’t want to serve while their kids are young (and some claim that until their kids are in high school)? How about the cops, lawyers, firemen etc who don’t want to serve because they never get picked so it is just a waste of time to show up? How about the self employed who don’t want to give up their income? Students aren’t special, everyone has an excuse (and I heard a lot of them even though I had no power to excuse anyone).
As other posters have said, Massachusetts is a “one day/one trial” state. I’ve done jury duty 3 times. The first time I served on an aggravated rape trial that lasted a week. They asked all prospective jurors if they had any reason they could not serve. Some people were excused because serving would be a hardship. The second time I was able to switch both the time and location of my service because I had small kids in school. I checked in the night before and found I would not need to show up. The third time I was again able to select my day and location and although I did have to appear after we filled out our paperwork we were allowed to head out to Starbucks or do an errand for an hour before we were asked to return. As it turned out all the cases on the docket were settled so they let us go home by 10 am.
In the first and third cases I was given credit for serving. This disqualifies a juror from being called up for 3 years.
If he feels it would be difficult for him to serve (and I agree with others who say it’s an interesting, educational experience) I would have him explain that he has been living elsewhere, just moved back to MA temporarily and feels he is disqualified because he will have lived in MA for less than half the calendar year. It might not get him out of jury duty but it’s worth a try.
Another option would be to simply seal the envelope up and send it back with “no longer at this address” written across the old address. By the time they track him down again at his new address he’ll probably be out of school.
If he does need/want to serve and he has been assigned to a court at a distance from where he goes to school he can ask for a local court. One of the reasons I requested our district court, aside from the ease of getting there, was that it handles less violent crime and more drunk driving and other minor cases which are often settled before trial.
http://www.mass.gov/courts/jury-info/faqs/faq-the-massachusetts-jury-system.html#3
I served on a 5 week civil trial this past winter. Given that it was a civil trial and that everyone in the room besides the jurors was paid a living wage, I am still really annoyed. The attorneys got paid, the judge and clerks got paid, the witnesses got paid – sometimes huge amounts. And the plaintiff got FIFTEEN MILLION DOLLARS. For FIVE weeks out of my life, I got a check for $450. That did not cover the cost of driving a 40 mile round trip to the courthouse. The system needs to be changed to have the parties involved pay the jurors $15/hour, not less than minimum wage. (As a retired person, I don’t have an employer to pay my normal wages.)