Sorry to bump this thread back up but my dad got summoned and he's in Asia and he won't be back until June when the summon date is April. Also the trial will last 10 to 12 months and he is only here for weeks at a time because business is in Asia and he has to take care of that.

I'm going to call the sheriff's office tomorrow but in the meantime has anyone else here been in this situation? He really can't attend but will they penalize him or something?

Dude freaky, my dad got summoned to the same trial commencing around april 10th I believe lol. I think he just replied back saying he wouldn't be able to understand the english very well

They can't penalize you. On the paper it says if you can't go because of prior travel arrangements etc. that's fine.

I got out of jury duty last year because I was doing co-op in Ottawa.
Thank god lol I don't really care for the experience enough to interrupt school/work to go to jury duty.

You must respond to the summons.

It is very possible to get out of jury duty but you'll probably have to provide justification for his absence. Write a letter indicating his lack of availability. including firm travel plans would be helpful. If you do not reply and do not show up for jury selection I believe you can be (legally) punished.

The summons should provide you with the basics of what documentation is needed to justify absence from jury duty.

^Yup. You can write on his behalf. My dad got summoned as well and I wrote the letter for him. He got excused.

i've been excused from jury duty before. u'll need proof of purchase of flight, paid accommodation etc etc. you can't just show up and say ur going somewhere. a few people tried that and were told to sit back down. i brought my proof of flight purchased before the summons, accommodation, and conference which i was attending. the judge told me that was excused.

the judge didn't let a lady attend her bestfriend of 40yrs funeral, well, didn't excuse her but the lawyers voted to let her go.

so , what im saying is when you attend jury selection, the judge is also bound by rules of what excuses are legitimate

you can also submit a letter before hand by mail to be excused from jury duty or call the helpline's for information as well

I wrote a letter cause I was starting a new job and was going to be in training, good enough excuse I guess cause I got out of the jury duty. :)

^ Thanks for all the input guys.

So I called and they said just write a letter and they'll take care of it.

They said that they have hundreds of people anyway so if people ask to be excused and have even a semi valid reason they will be excused.

10-12 month criminal trial... wonder if this is a high profile case. Ah well guess I'll never know.

Waste of time... I just said I had school, and I was excused. lol

fuck civic duty.
if they want people to skip work for jury duty maybe they should compensate the amount that is lost by not working that day.
dont pay me like 40 bucks and say lets call it even.

So i was just at the jury selection downtown.
They were selecting for 2 trials. Trials are to last 15 days.
They pay $20 a day for the 1st 10 days and $60 a day after 10 days. Plus $15 for travel

After the trial, if the deliberations go for days/weeks, your arent allowed to leave. They pay for hotel and meals, but you can't have any contact with people outside.

They selected people to go in front of the judge and the defence/crown counsel.

The 2 trials were both for 1st degree murders.

when i got called up, the defence lawyers took a look and me and dismissed me..lol

i didn't give the judge an excuse.

LOL!

I guess the best way to get out of jury duty is to dress like a gangster or hoodrat for that day.

they took guys wearing hats/shorts. i was wearing hoody and jeans.

a lot of people asked to be excused due to work and other bullshit.

I would have worn a tracksuit a baseball hat and asked when will be the breaks cause I need to smoke alot when I'm under pressure and also ask if we can have a few drinks before the trial as my first comments during the selection process.

if you want to get out of jury duty than you really shouldn't be bitching about about trial results

I would've dressed like this:

and I would've said this:

just curious, ghostrider did you get selected for a trial starting june25 - july3?

no, it was for trial starting today to the 22nd