What exactly are the consequences for throwing your juror summons in the trash and pretending that you never received it?
This section is intended to be read within the context of the entire book. If nothing else, I will repeat the statement that I made at the very start of the book on the home page:
If you are called for jury duty, and are reasonably able to serve (and if the court staff is understanding and helpful in rescheduling your service date as needed), it is important that you support your fellow American citizens by serving to the best of your ability and with complete honesty, even if serving is inconvenient and/or unpleasant.
Court officials frequently acknowledge that the response to juror summonses is abysmally low, and that this can jeopardize our system of justice from working as intended. They sometimes even admit to the news media that it is difficult if not impossible to enforce compliance since doing so requires resources of time and money that are not available and/or are better allocated to other purposes.
One example of what might be needed for better enforcement is sending a certified letter (to prove receipt) to people who repeatedly ignore their summonses, but this is about 10 times more costly than a regular letter. A more extreme example would be sending a law enforcement agent or court official to the home of someone who ignores multiple jury summonses. This would most likely lead to an outcry from the public who does not approve of their tax dollars and law enforcement resources being allocated for this purpose, especially since the attempt is most likely to be for naught, and if nothing else, “there are bigger fish to fry.”
My concern is as follows: Instead of providing encouragement and incentives for people to fulfill their civic duty and honor their summonses, the government just spews out vague and empty threats which go largely ignored. This just makes the government appear weak, uncoordinated, understaffed, and underfunded in a time and context in which most Americans (if not the entire world) have come to consider the US Government as nothing more than a collection of squabbling, bumbling fools with inflated egos.
Another concern is that there is no national standardization of the “penalty” or “punishment” for ignoring a jury duty summons. Each state and each court district within each state has its own policy on the matter, and its own special way of expressing its “threat.” Again, this just makes us look uncoordinated as a nation, and serves to lessen the significance of serving on jury duty “for its own sake.” Some court districts threaten being charged with “contempt of court,” but do not explain what that means nor describe the actual consequences of such. Some court districts use the phrase “may (emphasis mine) face civil and/or criminal penalties,” again without providing any details. Some threaten that the individual may be summoned to court (perhaps enforced after being stopped for a simple traffic violation) to explain his/her lack of compliance to a judge. Some mention a specific or maximum fine, often ranging from $50 to $250, and often in an “and/or” context. Some even mention a specific or maximum amount of jail time.
It is time for our nation to “wake up,” and take note of the fact that we are now in the year 2015 (as of the time of this writing), and decide “once and for all” how we want to handle the matter of jury duty non-compliance. We need to find a better system than sending repeated letters by untraceable postal mail to people who will most likely dispose of them. We need to stop including vague and empty threats, especially in a context in which the government cannot actually prove receipt of a summons. We need to start including incentives and extensive motivational information with summonses. We need to provide abundant assistance to people in rescheduling their service as needed. We need to treat people as human beings when assessing hardships which may prevent serving in the short or long-term. Most importantly, we need to ensure that poor and middle-class jurors do not incur any financial loss as a result of serving on jury duty.
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If you are called for jury duty, and are reasonably able to serve (and if the court staff is understanding and helpful in rescheduling your service date as needed), it is important that you support your fellow American citizens by serving to the best of your ability and with complete honesty, even if serving is inconvenient and/or unpleasant.
Court officials frequently acknowledge that the response to juror summonses is abysmally low, and that this can jeopardize our system of justice from working as intended. They sometimes even admit to the news media that it is difficult if not impossible to enforce compliance since doing so requires resources of time and money that are not available and/or are better allocated to other purposes.
One example of what might be needed for better enforcement is sending a certified letter (to prove receipt) to people who repeatedly ignore their summonses, but this is about 10 times more costly than a regular letter. A more extreme example would be sending a law enforcement agent or court official to the home of someone who ignores multiple jury summonses. This would most likely lead to an outcry from the public who does not approve of their tax dollars and law enforcement resources being allocated for this purpose, especially since the attempt is most likely to be for naught, and if nothing else, “there are bigger fish to fry.”
My concern is as follows: Instead of providing encouragement and incentives for people to fulfill their civic duty and honor their summonses, the government just spews out vague and empty threats which go largely ignored. This just makes the government appear weak, uncoordinated, understaffed, and underfunded in a time and context in which most Americans (if not the entire world) have come to consider the US Government as nothing more than a collection of squabbling, bumbling fools with inflated egos.
Another concern is that there is no national standardization of the “penalty” or “punishment” for ignoring a jury duty summons. Each state and each court district within each state has its own policy on the matter, and its own special way of expressing its “threat.” Again, this just makes us look uncoordinated as a nation, and serves to lessen the significance of serving on jury duty “for its own sake.” Some court districts threaten being charged with “contempt of court,” but do not explain what that means nor describe the actual consequences of such. Some court districts use the phrase “may (emphasis mine) face civil and/or criminal penalties,” again without providing any details. Some threaten that the individual may be summoned to court (perhaps enforced after being stopped for a simple traffic violation) to explain his/her lack of compliance to a judge. Some mention a specific or maximum fine, often ranging from $50 to $250, and often in an “and/or” context. Some even mention a specific or maximum amount of jail time.
It is time for our nation to “wake up,” and take note of the fact that we are now in the year 2015 (as of the time of this writing), and decide “once and for all” how we want to handle the matter of jury duty non-compliance. We need to find a better system than sending repeated letters by untraceable postal mail to people who will most likely dispose of them. We need to stop including vague and empty threats, especially in a context in which the government cannot actually prove receipt of a summons. We need to start including incentives and extensive motivational information with summonses. We need to provide abundant assistance to people in rescheduling their service as needed. We need to treat people as human beings when assessing hardships which may prevent serving in the short or long-term. Most importantly, we need to ensure that poor and middle-class jurors do not incur any financial loss as a result of serving on jury duty.
Go to Next Topic
Go to Table to Contents