{"id":226,"date":"2009-10-27T09:42:20","date_gmt":"2009-10-27T09:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/2009\/10\/jury-duty-do-you-try-to-worm-your-way-out-of-it.html"},"modified":"2009-10-27T09:42:20","modified_gmt":"2009-10-27T09:42:20","slug":"jury-duty-do-you-try-to-worm-your-way-out-of-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/10\/jury-duty-do-you-try-to-worm-your-way-out-of-it.html","title":{"rendered":"Jury Duty: Do You Try To Worm Your Way Out Of It?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve got jury duty &#8211; pleh! I seem to get called every time I vote, renew my license, or, heck, breathe too loudly while walking past a government office. This time &#8217;round, I even got summoned for TWO courts at roughly the same time, so I have to juggle how to serve and which one takes precedence.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In theory, I&#8217;m all about fulfilling my civic duty. I even get a feeling of pride knowing I&#8217;m contributing to society. Yet, when I arrive each time&#8230;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n&#8230;I can&#8217;t help thinking up lame excuses for why I shouldn&#8217;t serve on this or that boring case, or dreaming up ways to worm altogether out of the tedious, frustrating, excruciatingly dull obligation that is serving jury duty.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Now, I haven&#8217;t actually <i>used<\/i> any of these excuses I&#8217;ve brainstormed in my feverish mind, but on past occasions, I&#8217;ve heard other people in the courthouses offer up some doozies. Like the guy who got out of serving on one civil case by saying, &#8220;Judge, this case as you&#8217;ve described it sounds SO boring, I can guarantee you right now I would never be able to keep myself awake through it.&#8221; The judge actually released him!&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b><i>Do you think it&#8217;s unethical to try to get out of jury duty? Or are excuses and postponements all part of the game? Have you heard any whoppers when you&#8217;ve served? Or told any?<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>Subscribe to receive updates from Everyday Ethics or&nbsp;<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EverydayEthics\"><strong>follow us on&nbsp;Twitter<\/strong><\/a><strong>!<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><b><br \/><\/b><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve got jury duty &#8211; pleh! I seem to get called every time I vote, renew my license, or, heck, breathe too loudly while walking past a government office. This time &#8217;round, I even got summoned for TWO courts at roughly the same time, so I have to juggle how to serve and which one&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-hillary-fields","category-civics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jury Duty: Do You Try To Worm Your Way Out Of It? - Everyday Ethics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/10\/jury-duty-do-you-try-to-worm-your-way-out-of-it.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jury Duty: Do You Try To Worm Your Way Out Of It? - Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#039;ve got jury duty - pleh! I seem to get called every time I vote, renew my license, or, heck, breathe too loudly while walking past a government office. 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She attended St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she studied classics and philosophy, and then respectfully declined to spend the rest of her life in an ivory tower. Instead, she turned to the life of a writer and editor, penning three romance novels published by St. Martin's Press and contributing features to such periodicals as Cosmopolitan magazine. Her fascination with the moral dilemmas that crop up in everyday life--and the many intriguing ways people handle them--has always colored her writings. Now, that interest is leading her to take the discussion online; where, hopefully, the addition of reader feedback will bring these quotidian quandaries--and their potential solutions--vibrantly to life. When she's not plumbing the ethical mysteries of humanity, her passions include cooking (especially baking), origami, kittens, reading, watching really bad television and playing online scrabble. (And no, she doesn't cheat... much.)","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/author\/hfields"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}