Getting out of jury duty in residency

[Trismegistus4]

I received a summons for county court jury duty postmarked on May 7th. I put it aside, thinking I'd deal with it later. Well, the summons is for June 2nd, this coming Monday. I know I should have dealt with it sooner, but in my program we're supposed to give clinics 6 weeks notice to take time off. I have patients scheduled all week at a different clinic every day. Getting selected might delay the start of my 4th year. Has anyone gotten excused from jury duty in residency? If so, what did you tell them? This is in Ohio, by the way.

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[rokshana]

talk to your PD, but you're kinda screwed…if you had sent it in you may have gotten out of it, but now? talk to the county court and see what can be done.

 

[Raryn]

You're probably too late to fix it now, but most jurisdictions will allow you to postpone jury duty to a different, more convenient date. I had a summons for this May that I postponed to Nov-Dec.

 

[MordFustang]

When they screen you and ask if you might have any beliefs that might prevent you from making a decision strictly based on the law, just say you do. That should get you out of jury duty in no time. Here's a link:



Just kidding btw

 

[Winged Scapula]

When they screen you and ask if you might have any beliefs that might prevent you from making a decision strictly based on the law, just say you do. That should get you out of jury duty in no time. Here's a link:



Just kidding btw

That's all unnecessary.

Almost without fail physicians get screened out by opposing counsel.

 

[edmadison]

My father (an OB/GYN) served on a jury in a rape case!

Ed

 

[Law2Doc]

That's all unnecessary.

Almost without fail physicians get screened out by opposing counsel.

Not so. I had a much much easier time not being selected as a Lawyer than as a doctor.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Not so. I had a much much easier time not being selected as a Lawyer than as a doctor.

Of course you did; that's not surprising at all. It would be ridiculous
to think so. I'm comparing physicians to the general public and have had several trial lawyers tell me, especially when doing criminal defense, that they tend not to approve physicians and attorneys. Something about us being too critical.

 

[Winged Scapula]

My father (an OB/GYN) served on a jury in a rape case!

Ed

(sigh) Yes guys it happens. Perhaps I should not have been so emphatic. It is not just my observation that physicians are selected at a lower rate than the general populace (and attorneys too).

 

[link2swim06]

Although physicians and attorneys can be chosen at a lower rate even Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer, former prosecutor, and mayor ended up on a jury.


http://nypost.com/1999/08/31/rudy-does-his-duty-hes-jury-foreman-in-7m-civil-case/

 

[Law2Doc]

Although physicians and attorneys can be chosen at a lower rate even Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer, former prosecutor, and mayor ended up on a jury.


http://nypost.com/1999/08/31/rudy-does-his-duty-hes-jury-foreman-in-7m-civil-case/

He was actually still the sitting mayor at the time. It was probably malpractice for the losing lawyer in that case not to ask the judge to strike him from the jury, but he likely felt pressured not to do so for obvious reasons. (You rather lose the case than do battle with the mayors office). While RG had to offer to do his civic duty -- Totally inappropriate for him to be impaneled, let alone agree to be foreman. This effectively wasn't a jury of twelve, it was a jury of one.

At any rate I've been called for jury duty multiple times during residency, and it's always been a struggle not to end up stuck on a jury for a long case. I'm not sure WSs experience is at all the norm. Around here lawyers seem to like educated jurors, particularly on the civil and appellate cases.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Although physicians and attorneys can be chosen at a lower rate even Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer, former prosecutor, and mayor ended up on a jury.


http://nypost.com/1999/08/31/rudy-does-his-duty-hes-jury-foreman-in-7m-civil-case/

Good Lord..."he's a macho man, a mans man, he'll be able to understand that kind of injury". Interesting reason to choose a juror.

At any rate, of course it happens. I maintain that in Guilianis case it was mostly grandstanding by counsel in an effort to achieve more press. There's a good reason why celebrities aren't often chosen (note I said not often, not never).

 

[Winged Scapula]

He was actually still the sitting mayor at the time. It was probably malpractice for the losing lawyer in that case not to ask the judge to strike him from the jury, but he likely felt pressured not to do so for obvious reasons. (You rather lose the case than do battle with the mayors office). While RG had to offer to do his civic duty -- Totally inappropriate for him to be impaneled, let alone agree to be foreman. This effectively wasn't a jury of twelve, it was a jury of one.

Totally agree. There is no way that was a jury of 12 independent people.

At any rate I've been called for jury duty multiple times during residency, and it's always been a struggle not to end up stuck on a jury for a long case. I'm not sure WSs experience is at all the norm. Around here lawyers seem to like educated jurors, particularly on the civil and appellate cases.

You've been called several times just during residency? Either I'm doing something right or wrong because I've only been called twice in my life. Perhaps my experience is different but I think we are comparing apples and oranges: civil vs criminal.

 

[Smurfette]

Every resident or attending I've known who were called for jury duty got dismissed. Most of them noted a pattern of the more educated people getting dismissed as well.

As a gen surgeon, I would be shocked if I wasn't dismissed in a criminal case involving bodily harm, given my trauma center experiences make me biased.

Anecdotally, I got the letter once during residency, requested a delay until a different month (with reason why), then never ended up having to report for jury duty at all. I also got called for jury duty when I was 17, but obviously didn't serve back then either since I was underage.

 

[PTPoeny]

Is residency not like medical school? I got jury duty summons every year throughout medical school (all 8 years) and each time my medical school sent in a letter starting that I was in a training program with unique instruction on each day and my education would be negatively affected and I would get excused for that year. By the end I was getting two a year because I also got summoned for district court jury duty. I got excused every time. Does this not work in residency too?

 

[Law2Doc]

Is residency not like medical school? I got jury duty summons every year throughout medical school (all 8 years) and each time my medical school sent in a letter starting that I was in a training program with unique instruction on each day and my education would be negatively affected and I would get excused for that year. By the end I was getting two a year because I also got summoned for district court jury duty. I got excused every time. Does this not work in residency too?

That totally depends on the policies of your state -- in most states being in training is not a valid grounds for getting out of jury duty. my experience has been that my administration has been powerless to get me out of jury duty. And I've asked them to try a couple of times now.

 

[Law2Doc]

Every resident or attending I've known who were called for jury duty got dismissed. Most of them noted a pattern of the more educated people getting dismissed as well.

As a gen surgeon, I would be shocked if I wasn't dismissed in a criminal case involving bodily harm, given my trauma center experiences make me biased.

Anecdotally, I got the letter once during residency, requested a delay until a different month (with reason why), then never ended up having to report for jury duty at all. I also got called for jury duty when I was 17, but obviously didn't serve back then either since I was underage.

Civil, appellate and criminal cases are different -- educated people are actually preferred for the former two and you might have to work very hard if you want to stay off a panel. Also location demographics tend to be important -- they will be very slow to let you off a panel if you are the only white/ black/ Asian or Hispanic person called for that particular panel, or if they already let a few people of your race off the hook before they got to you. If eg the defendant is Hispanic and a lawyer wants to strike you and you are one of the few Hispanics that got called, it probably won't happen even if he's really trying to strike you for being upper class or educated or a physician. It just smacks of a constitutional violation (jury of his peers) and a judge won't allow it.

 

[Top Gun]

I would think a lawyer would be excused from jury duty. A lawyer knows too much about how the legal system works.

 

[surg]

I have been called twice in the last 5 years, but the only time made it past the holding room, I got empaneled as an alternate juror on a criminal case which was even worse. I had to sit there and listen for the whole trial, but then had to wait until the actual finished deliberating until I was free of jury service. Total time was about a week and a half, but fortunately I was allowed to go to work during Jury deliberations with the understand that I could be called to return at any time so I could do clinic and short cases but not take call.

As far as getting off, jury duty is almost always a recognized legitimate reason for absence in the real world. However, it is prudent to try to postpone it until your next scheduled vacation as the ACGME rules of how many weeks you are on clinical duty don't care that you got stuck on a case. Also, when questioned on a long case, claiming hardship that would affect you or your patients can be done, but rarely for a short case. One of my partners would have had to cancel a bunch of cases (whipples and other large oncologic cases) and got no sympathy from the judge until he explained that the delay from waiting for a potentially long trial might actually impact his patient's survival and there was no one else available to do the operation in a timely fashion. The good news is that most of the time you will just end up sitting in the jury waiting room then going home without ever seeing the inside of a courtroom.


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[KnuxNole]

I'd basically tell them " Do you really want ME of all people, someone who would sleep during the whole trial case, and have 0 opinions whatsoever to come? if so, screw people's lives up and pick me!"

 

[Law2Doc]

I would think a lawyer would be excused from jury duty. A lawyer knows too much about how the legal system works.

You would think, but almost every state has decided otherwise. I've served on multiple juries in several states now. The only "out" lawyers get is sometimes they sometimes know the counsel from one or the other side.

 

[Law2Doc]

I'd basically tell them " Do you really want ME of all people, someone who would sleep during the whole trial case, and have 0 opinions whatsoever to come? if so, screw people's lives up and pick me!"

Um, you just described the perfect juror a lawyer would WANT to choose for most cases. The people that actually pay attention, have strong opinions and don't go along with the group are usually the wild cards one side will try to avoid.

 

[KnuxNole]

Um, you just described the perfect juror a lawyer would WANT to choose for most cases. The people that actually pay attention, have strong opinions and don't go along with the group are usually the wild cards one side will try to avoid.

Isn't that a liability though? Picking someone who doesn't give a **** if someone is convicted of a major crime or not? Someone who would just purposely go against the grain for the trolling sake of argumenting? Or one who thinks "Oh, I don't like the prosecutor cause he's ugly...let's sentence him to life in prison even though he seems innocent!!!"

I know if I was picked, I'd never say one word, and shrug my shoulders if they dare to ask me anything during the meeting. I'd pick Innocent or Guilty with a coin flip too.

 

[Law2Doc]

Isn't that a liability though? Picking someone who doesn't give a **** if someone is convicted of a major crime or not? Someone who would just purposely go against the grain for the trolling sake of argumenting? Or one who thinks "Oh, I don't like the prosecutor cause he's ugly...let's sentence him to life in prison even though he seems innocent!!!"

I know if I was picked, I'd never say one word, and shrug my shoulders if they dare to ask me anything during the meeting. I'd pick Innocent or Guilty with a coin flip too.

As a lawyer your dream jury will be 1-2 people you think will agree with you and the other 10-11 who don't give a crap. The ones who get stricken off the jury tend to have strong vocal opinions.

 

[KnuxNole]

As a lawyer your dream jury will be 1-2 people you think will agree with you and the other 10-11 who don't give a crap. The ones who get stricken off the jury tend to have strong vocal opinions.

Interesting. Could suck for the people who are going to trial, when their lives are determined by 10 people who show up drunk as a skunk and baked as ****. 😛

 

[Law2Doc]

Interesting. Could suck for the people who are going to trial, when their lives are determined by 10 people who show up drunk as a skunk and baked as ****. 😛

Don't know where you are from but around here that's a jury of your peers.

 

[eject]

Civil, appellate and criminal cases are different -- educated people are actually preferred for the former two and you might have to work very hard if you want to stay off a panel. Also location demographics tend to be important -- they will be very slow to let you off a panel if you are the only white/ black/ Asian or Hispanic person called for that particular panel, or if they already let a few people of your race off the hook before they got to you. If eg the defendant is Hispanic and a lawyer wants to strike you and you are one of the few Hispanics that got called, it probably won't happen even if he's really trying to strike you for being upper class or educated or a physician. It just smacks of a constitutional violation (jury of his peers) and a judge won't allow it.

L2D, your L is getting rusty! Not too many juries hear appeals. 😉 you said it twice though, so maybe you've been in some jurisdiction where that's a thing. But it seems to me that, by definition, an appeal does not involve finders of fact.

 

[KnuxNole]

Don't know where you are from but around here that's a jury of your peers.

Oh good, we'll have more in common when we take shots of tequila before sitting in a boring trial. 😉

 

[dpmd]

Everybody with their ideas of how to get out of jury duty is missing the point that you are supposed to show up tomorrow. You sure ****ed up good on this one. You have two choices at this point, neither of which is all that great. Number one would be do whatever the jury summons says (like call in the night before like some places do) and notify your program that they are going to have to cover for your absence with no prior notice and deal with whatever consequences come from that. Number two would be to do what you did for the past few months, which is ignore the summons, and be prepared to deal with whatever consequences come from that. Depending on where you live and your program I am betting number two is going to be the better option even with the possibility of legal trouble, since you could always try to claim you never got it and get out of trouble while you are pretty much guaranteed to get in trouble with your program trying to be gone for a week with no notice for something that you could have prepared for in advance.

 

[Law2Doc]

L2D, your L is getting rusty! Not too many juries hear appeals. 😉 you said it twice though, so maybe you've been in some jurisdiction where that's a thing. But it seems to me that, by definition, an appeal does not involve finders of fact.

Its a semantic thing, but in many local jurisdictions they use the district court/circuit court model. The circuit court hears cases from the district court as well as it own, so is actually also the appellate court. You can be a juror on either.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

You've been called several times just during residency? Either I'm doing something right or wrong because I've only been called twice in my life. Perhaps my experience is different but I think we are comparing apples and oranges: civil vs criminal.

I got called once in med school (they let me delay it until the break between semesters), and just got a freaking summons the other day.

The time I got called in med school was actually hilarious - because they apparently rescheduled every college and professional student for that same week as me in between semesters - so if you happened to be in court that week your jury of peers was going to be a bunch of 18-24 year old college kids.

 

[BADMD]

Every resident or attending I've known who were called for jury duty got dismissed. Most of them noted a pattern of the more educated people getting dismissed as well.

I had the displeasure of sitting on the jury of a "capital" murder trial as an attending. Of the 15 of us (12 + 3 alternates), only 2 did not have a college degree. Half of the remaining had additional education over the BA.

(capital for Michigan as there is no death penalty here)

 

[BlondeDocteur]

(sigh) Yes guys it happens. Perhaps I should not have been so emphatic. It is not just my observation that physicians are selected at a lower rate than the general populace (and attorneys too).

WS haven't you learned the cardinal rule of SDN by now? If you can provide a single, isolated, anecdotal data point to the contrary, there can be absolutely no valid truth to a theory. Because sociopolitical trends are basically the same as quantum mechanics.

 

[michaelrack]

ON a related note, is it possible to carry a cell phone/pager during jury duty or use that as an excuse to get out of it? For example, I supervise an NP in a very low risk specialty (outpt sleep med clinic) but need to be availabe for the extremely rare time she calls me for an emergency (of course I regulary talk to her about less urgent matters). Or would it be possible instead of me carrying a pager/cell phone, to have her call a court employee if she needs me? This is all just a hypothetical right now.

 

[dpmd]

ON a related note, is it possible to carry a cell phone/pager during jury duty or use that as an excuse to get out of it? For example, I supervise an NP in a very low risk specialty (outpt sleep med clinic) but need to be availabe for the extremely rare time she calls me for an emergency (of course I regulary talk to her about less urgent matters). Or would it be possible instead of me carrying a pager/cell phone, to have her call a court employee if she needs me? This is all just a hypothetical right now.

You can have your phone in the waiting area, but I think they made us turn our phones off when I got picked to be in the jury pool. There was a gap in time from when that happened to when I was allowed to say why I didn't think I could be on the jury (was a case that was expected to last longer than I had cleared the schedule for and I told them I didn't want to delay the care of those patients or lose out on the education of operating on them-it was during residency). It wasn't long, but then again not that many people raised their hands to give an upfront excuse. It might have taken more time if lots of people wanted to get out of it. So depends on whether you can risk being out of contact for like an hour or so (maybe arrange for someone to be a backup to you if she can't get through). During the trial I wouldn't think you would be able to take calls.

 

[dpmd]

Would be a good thing to ask pretty early after you arrive in the waiting room area because maybe you would get excused earlier that way (or they would keep your name out of the jury pool lists and just make you sit there in the waiting room for the day to complete your service)

 

[el_duderino]

ON a related note, is it possible to carry a cell phone/pager during jury duty or use that as an excuse to get out of it? For example, I supervise an NP in a very low risk specialty (outpt sleep med clinic) but need to be availabe for the extremely rare time she calls me for an emergency (of course I regulary talk to her about less urgent matters). Or would it be possible instead of me carrying a pager/cell phone, to have her call a court employee if she needs me? This is all just a hypothetical right now.

When I got called, they collected any and all electronic devices at the door.

 

[deleted480308]

Show up with a bunch of jury nullification pamphlets and talk about being a libertarian. 🙂

I don't ever get picked

 

[Raryn]

Show up with a bunch of jury nullification pamphlets and talk about being a libertarian. 🙂

I don't ever get picked

Sounds like a great way to be found in contempt of court.

 

[deleted480308]

Sounds like a great way to be found in contempt of court.

no...jury nullification is an important legal concept

 

[gutonc]

Show up with a bunch of jury nullification pamphlets and talk about being a libertarian. 🙂

I don't ever get picked

Yeah, but they try to weed out all the whack - jobs. Yours is certainly one approach to that end.

 

[Neuronix]

That's all unnecessary.

Almost without fail physicians get screened out by opposing counsel.

I got called as a juror in a lead paint poisoning in public housing civil trial as a PhD in biophysics/imaging (mostly of the brain, undergrad in neuroscience). I was struck by the plaintiff's counsel in a jiffy 😀

 

[primadonna22274]

I just got a summons for federal court in SC...to be available for TWO YEARS...lol. I will send it back but pray they screen me out before it becomes an issue with my residency.

 

[Siggy]

Is residency not like medical school? I got jury duty summons every year throughout medical school (all 8 years) and each time my medical school sent in a letter starting that I was in a training program with unique instruction on each day and my education would be negatively affected and I would get excused for that year. By the end I was getting two a year because I also got summoned for district court jury duty. I got excused every time. Does this not work in residency too?

In California you can get rescheduled, but not automatically dismissed for being a student.

 

[Top Gun]

You know, if I did have time, I actually think it would be interesting to serve on a jury for certain cases, like a murder trial. I wouldn't mind so much if I couldn't get excused for one of those. If it was a regular civil suit, though, like some boring workman's comp case, I'd be doing everything I could to get out of it.

 

[Trismegistus4]

Everybody with their ideas of how to get out of jury duty is missing the point that you are supposed to show up tomorrow. You sure ****** up good on this one. You have two choices at this point, neither of which is all that great. Number one would be do whatever the jury summons says (like call in the night before like some places do) and notify your program that they are going to have to cover for your absence with no prior notice and deal with whatever consequences come from that. Number two would be to do what you did for the past few months, which is ignore the summons, and be prepared to deal with whatever consequences come from that. Depending on where you live and your program I am betting number two is going to be the better option even with the possibility of legal trouble, since you could always try to claim you never got it and get out of trouble while you are pretty much guaranteed to get in trouble with your program trying to be gone for a week with no notice for something that you could have prepared for in advance.

Update: the outcome was that I ignored the summons. The result was simply that they sent another one for July 14th. This time, I went, and unfortunately got selected for a trial, which lasted 2 days.

 

[dpmd]

Thanks for the update. I assume you coordinated with your program when you got the second summons and all was well with that aspect?

 

[nlax30]

I just had my first one a couple weeks ago. My significant other is a prosecutor and while there was no way they would have selected me I still had to show up and wait not to get picked. I brought some study material and waited until they empaneled the only group they needed and sent the rest of us home.

 

[QofQuimica]

I was going to say, Tri, good luck getting out of it. I had to go once during residency too, and used a precious day off to do it. They didn't pick me though so it was only one half day.

 

[Trismegistus4]

Thanks for the update. I assume you coordinated with your program when you got the second summons and all was well with that aspect?

Yes. Forunately, by then it was PGY-4 year, which is much more flexible for me.

I was going to say, Tri, good luck getting out of it. I had to go once during residency too, and used a precious day off to do it. They didn't pick me though so it was only one half day.

What's crazy is that in the state where I now reside, it's a minimum 5-day service whether you get picked for a trial or not. That is, if you don't get picked on Monday, you have to come back on Tuesday, and if you don't get picked then, you have to come back on Wednesday, and so on until Friday. I didn't know that until I got there on Monday. I had been telling people "hey, I have jury duty on Monday; hopefully I won't get picked for a trial, and will be back on Tuesday." That's the way it worked in my home state, where I had been summoned twice but selected for a trial neither time.