How to Get Out of Jury Duty

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Mr. Forthright shares his wisdom of the many ways you can get kicked off jury duty. In reality, just being truthful in response to every question will probably get you out of serving. You will still miss a few days of work, because the system is anything but streamlined.

I would never advise that you try to get out of jury duty. It’s part of the obligation we have as citizens of a democracy, after all. As a stable, upstanding citizen who votes in every election, I have been summoned quite a few times. However, I have never gotten as far as sitting on an actual court case. That one question, “Has anyone in your family ever been convicted of a crime?” gets me thrown off every time. They don’t ask how close the family member was, or what crime it was. I don’t see how they can ever seat an entire panel by being that picky. -via Tastefully Offensive


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I was going to say engineers too, although a few of them that I know seem to get by and end up on juries once in a while. I think one of the formal reasons for rejecting such people is wanting experts as witnesses, not jurors. Although a lot of fields of research that doesn't apply to (outside of some comedy sitcom situation), and kind of points toward your reason instead. It hasn't actually happened to me yet though, as I haven't been summoned since the one incident years ago that I mentioned above.
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My dad, who was an engineer, encountered something similar. On the few times that he's been called to jury duty, he would be dismissed as soon as one attorney learned that he was an engineer.

My dad thinks that it's because engineers think logically and would not be easily swayed by emotions. Maybe you were dismissed for the same reason.
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Another way to get out of jury duty: get a PhD. Considering the effort put into avoiding jury duty, that might be the path of least resistance for some... But seriously, about every friend and coworker I have working in science fields, PhD or not, has gotten rejected for jury duty when asked what their job was.

Although some judges still try pretty hard to keep people from getting out of jury duty, as I once had a judge tell me that attending a school 2500 miles away was no excuse. He did eventually say I could ask to reschedule it for when I was home on break, although I guess the clerk didn't want to deal with that and just had my summons dropped.
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I don't understand that one, either. For us, it's "have you or anyone in your family ever been the victim of a crime?" Basically everyone who says no is lying. Either way, asking about the specifics of the crime, who was involved, was there an arrest, did it go to trial, how long ago, etc. makes much more sense.
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No problems.
I do have fun when the cashier apologizes for the extra time they require to read. I tell them that I understand, since the chip contains a photon that is quantum-entangled with another photon at the National Institutes of Standards and Technologies in Washington, DC. The extra time taken is because the quantum state of both photons are being compared, to ensure that both are identical.

I further 'explain' that in Europe, entangled photons are in Saint Cloud, France, where the International Standard Kilogram is stored. The British, of course, keep theirs at the Royal Observatory.
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For anyone outside of the US who doesn't understand this problem, it's not so much that chip card readers are difficult to use. There are two main issues: 1) right now, it's about 50/50 as to whether the store you're going to can actually *use* the chip reader (even if the machine has a slot for it), so unless you frequent that place and remember how it is there, you ALWAYS have to ask, "Do I swipe or insert the card?"; and 2) in my experience, it takes *so* much longer for the chip reader process to complete than it did for a simple swipe of the old-fashioned credit card.

Once all retailers in America are able to use the chip reader, and once (or, "if") it starts going a lot faster, then no worries. Until then, it's just an annoyance for everyone involved, cashiers included.
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Classic trade-off issues between security, ease-of-use and legal liability. Ever try to use the "self-checkout" system? Notice that there is always someone around to make sure you are not stealing anything?
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Just an observation, but I sort of feel like many cards are less physically protected when using the chip reader. Why? Because swiping means the card usually doesn't leave the customer's hand; with the chip most folks pop it into the reader and it hangs there til the transaction is finished. Easier to grab than a bag hanging on someone's shoulder.
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I still don't like 'em. As previously mentioned, it's a crapshoot whether the reader is enabled or not, and more importantly, the two main sources of card fraud (online and gas stations) are not affected by having a chip or not. At least, I've never seen a gas station with a chip reader. You can still get your number stolen and they can still buy 50k worth of crap on amazon with it, whether there's a chip in the damn thing or not. It's just an annoyance, as far as I'm concerned.
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