Know Your Enemy
You’ve probably heard the 12 people seated in the jury box referred to as being “too stupid to get out of jury duty.”
Rule #1 of warfare is to know your enemy so that you can defeat him. Before I can teach you how to avoid Jury Duty, you need to learn the reasons that your valuable time is being wasted. If you know the reasons for Jury Duty, then you’ll be better prepared for battle.
If you want to know hot to get PICKED for a jury, see our other article, How to Get On a Jury.
Why Do We Even Have Juries?
Many people forget that we didn’t always have jury trials in this country. A long time ago, some people decided that they were tired of not having power over anyone so they started a ruckus against the guy that was in charge at the time.
At the time, he was responsible for the Court System and was doing everyone a favor since he oversaw it personally. He was a great guy that even volunteered to be the Judge AND Jury. He would sit at the head of the Court, listen to all of that boring evidence that we despise, and then issue a ruling.
Revolutionary War
Well, those people that didn’t like his style decided that they wanted to be the jury since they were super power-hungry and just wanted to finally be in charge of something for a change.
They didn’t ask us how we felt about it or even consider how we would feel about being burdened with these extra responsibilities. In fact, I bet they didn’t even consider that some people liked the old system and wouldn’t want to be a juror.
So this ruckus that they started with the guy in charge turned out to be a big deal and even cost thousands of lives. Literally, thousands of men died fighting for jury duty; stupid right?
The Outcome
Well, because of their selfish jury-loving ways, the main guy in charge that had volunteered to act as Judge and Jury got the boot. Those stupid jury-lovers got what they wanted.
There wasn’t anything wrong with the old system. I mean how much simpler could it get than to go to one guy for everything? His ruling was final. Appeal? Forget about it! I know some people got imprisoned if he was feeling especially grumpy that day, and sure he may have executed some people mistakenly, but that’s no reason for us to have jury duty.
So now that you know your enemy, the reasons we got stuck with jury duty, and the thousands of men and women that died thinking we wanted the freedom to govern ourselves, you’re ready to avoid jury duty.
It’s this simple: just don’t go. Sure you could go to jail, but in that case just demand a jury trial because those people will definitely be sympathetic to your pain…
–See FAILURE TO ANSWER JURY SUMMONS – Tex. Gov’t Code § 62.0141
–Authored by Matthew L. Harris, Esq., (*apply sarcasm and facetiousness liberally above)
Matthew Harris Law, PLLC – Civil Litigation Division
1001 Main Street, Suite 200, Lubbock, Texas, 79401-3309
Tel: (806) 702-4852 | Fax: (800) 985-9479