I know that Jury Duty is mandatory in both nations (USA all 50 states / Canada all 13 provinces) meaning citizens have to show up in person when they receive the “dreaded letter” via the mail telling them the date / time and court in which they have to attend, excusals exist if you manage to plead your reasoning for excusal with evidence.
I mean, have you received a summons from the court saying you’ve been chosen as a juror? There are penalities on failing to attend. If you were selected on being part of the jury, what is the experience like and how much are you paid? If you weren’t selected on being part of the jury that time, is there a chance you can be summoned again at any given moment?
Neurodivergent people (i.e. Autism, ADHD, dyslexia) who have received the summons can plead their reasoning as to why they aren’t eligible to be a juror only if they have medical evidence (diagnosis of their condition, psych report, doctors letter, medical certificate) explaining why their condition makes them unable to serve & etc.
Yeah I’ve been summoned a bunch of times (California). You get that at most 1x per year and usually you’re not needed (you’re excused over the phone, or you go to the courthouse and wait around most of the day before getting sent home). If you’re sent from the waiting room to an actual courtroom, you’re there with 50 or so other people who get called up and questioned (“voir dire”) one by one til they have selected 12 jurors and 4 alternates. Anyone left over is sent home. Once I made it all the way into the questioning phase but then got excused. I haven’t yet actually been on a jury. Anyway it’s time consuming but not that hard. There’s a small payment for those who need it. It’s nowhere near minimum wage.
I’ve gotten called multiple times and picked to sit on three. First two times I was picked the trial blew up and they scrapped things the first day. A lost VHS juror training tape (someone had moved it from the VCR… this was after VHS was a rarity) and a Juror that lied and claimed they didn’t know one of the witnesses and had contaminated the jury, the judge was pissed. Threatened to hold them in contempt really throw the book at the juror who lied and wasted everyone’s time and tried to pervert the legal system.
Third time got paid nothing (I believe pay kicks in after a certain amount of time? possibly 2 weeks I haven’t looked in years? and uh it isn’t much) disruptive to the schedule for a week but ones civic duty and I sure wouldn’t want jurors who are aren’t paying attention etc. if I was ever on trial. So of course multiple days into the case a witness takes the stand and I recognize them. Hadn’t recognized the name was an undergrad in my graduate department years prior. I’m freaking out and wait for their testimony to finish then raise my hand and am asked to approach the judges bench. They call over the various lawyers for prosecution and defense. In hushed whispers I explain the situation. They all interrogated me about the nature of our relationship and agreed to continue the trial. We lost one person along the way from the jurors and then the final day another person failed to appear. This meant both alternates got to serve on the jury as opposed to having to sit through the entire trial and not get to decide in deliberations. Have two for that exact reason. So it was a disruptive week I got a story out of. One of my fellow jurors claimed to have once served on a 6 month trial where they got sequestered in a hotel with no outside news… a rarity but it can happen.
USA
My doctor sent them a note suggesting an anxious autistic man with anxiety disorders who’s prone to panic attacks probably shouldn’t be a juror. They excused me.
Gotten summons by mail twice. Both times I was way out of town, so no chance of attending, they let me off.
Canadian here. Got summoned a few years ago. I applied for excusal on account of my autism and lack of transport to get to the courthouse which was in another city.
I have diagnosis documents for proof if needed but they never asked me. My request was approved and I never had to go.
I’ve been summoned as a juror twice in >20 years of eligibility. They have a number you call when the date comes to see if you actually have to appear or not; the first time, I didn’t have to go at all. The second time, I did have to appear; I sat in a waiting room with about 20 other people for an hour, then we were all told we could go home.
Overall, shitty experience.
We were explained that even sitting there waiting to be called was important. Usually things become real to the defendants when there’s a jury waiting and things settle at the last minute.
I got a summons during Covid, first summons I ever got, and haven’t gotten one sense. I was in my mid 30s, I kind of wanted to go just to see it for myself at least once but I’m an organ transplant recipient and I felt it was too risky to be out and about during Covid so my transplant clinic wrote me an excuse not that it wasn’t medically appropriate for me to attend and I was excused.
I think you always go back into the pool regardless of the outcome of your summons.
