Re: [OT] Judge reams out people avoiding jury duty

On May 20, 2025 at 5:45:58 PM PDT, "Rhino" <no_offline_contact@example.com>
wrote:

A judge in Hamilton, Ontario gathered a whole lot of people who had
failed to turn up for jury duty and demanded to know why.
 
>
https://www.thespec.com/news/crime/hamilton-courtroom-fail-to-obey-jury-duty-summons/article_6719b3d0-6d16-58bc-801e-62bf15b3fed1.html
 
I've only been called once and I showed up. The defendant made a last
minute decision to plead guilty and the whole jury pool of 250 was
dismissed so I wasn't there very long.
 
I'm under the impression that most Americans feel that only fools fail
to wiggle out of jury duty. Is this true?

I'd actually enjoy serving on a jury, especially now that I'm retired and have
time to kill. Even when I was working, the FedGov's policy is to pay you the
whole time you're on jury duty as if you were at work, so you don't lose any
money and you get (potentially) a week out of the office. A lot of people
aren't so lucky and don't get paid while on a jury. Most, if not all, states
have laws that prohibit an employer from firing you for jury duty but they
don't have to pay you while you're on one.

When I retired, I embarked on something I’d wanted to do for years and packed
up the car and just started lazily driving around the country, state-by-state,
staying in various places, sometimes a week at a time, to see all the sights.
L.A. to Key West, Florida to Maine, etc. The trip took me a month and a half.

When I finally returned home, I found a long-expired summons for jury duty in
my accumulated mail. I called the number on the summons and explained what had
happened. The woman looked up the number on my summons and said it was no
problem, they'd just cancel it in the system and issue a new summons for me
since I was home now and being retired had no work conflicts with serving. And
a few days later, a new summons showed up. I went and got eliminated the
moment both sides discovered I was a lawyer.