How to Get Out of Jury Duty
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
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.
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.