[REPOST]
This was back in the '80s, my first job, working as a maintenance man at a local hotel. I’d been working there part-time since I was 16 and when I turned 18, I got a notice to attend jury duty. I picked a week and I let my boss know.
The owner of the hotel found out and sees me in the hallway and tells me that I need to do “whatever it takes” to get out of jury duty because he needs me at the hotel that week for a large dog show, and if I’m not at work, I’m fired.
When I get to jury duty, day 1, I get selected for a week-long trial, and the judge asks jurors if there’s any reason we cannot serve on the jury. They go around… When they get to me, I’m nervous, never been in court before and too scared to lie.
Cue malicious compliance.
I tell the judge that the owner of the business I work at will fire me if I’m not back today and said I needed to do everything I can to get out of jury duty or I’m fired, other than that I’m fine serving. The judge looks p*ssed.
The judge has me approach the bench, asks for the name of the owner, location, etc. Then he hands the court officer a paper and says something to the officer. I’m told to return to the jury box. About an hour later (still selecting a jury), the officer returns with the owner, visibly shaken, in handcuffs and walked to the front of the judge’s bench.
The owner is standing in front of the judge. The judge asks him questions which he apologetically tries to worm out of.
Then the judge instructs him that I will be here for jury duty, I will serve as long as I need to, and he should NOT do anything to retaliate against me – and that the judge is filing charges and will be instructing the clerk to check with me regularly and if, for any reason, I am fired or face any disciplinary action at work - he will hold the owner in contempt, violation of a court order, and a bunch more legal stuff. He will spend time in jail thinking about how important jury duty is.
Then the judge makes him apologize to me, in court!
I made it onto the jury and I served the week. I reported back to work the following week. I expected some blowback, but I never got fired, none of my shifts were changed and I got paid for my time in jury - I didn’t ask why I got paid.
The clerk did check back a few times and I was told to call the judge’s clerk’s direct phone number if anything happened. It was awesome, I was pretty much bullet-proof and worked until I saved enough to go back to school.
TL;DR: When I got my first notice for jury duty, my boss told me to get out of it or I’d be fired. Being the scared 18-year old that I was, when the judge asked if any of us couldn’t serve, I told him what my boss had said. The judge had my boss dragged into court and threatened with jail time. I ended up serving on the jury and getting paid for the days I missed at work.
I did jury duty for a week and was not paid a cent by my full time employer. That jury duty caused me to go without groceries for a while.The U.S. fucking sucks. The employee class is treated like absolute trash here.
“Slavery’s illegal… unless we want you for jury duty.” is definitely some horseshit. My job will pay for like a week, but the fact that it’s entirely possible to be called for longer and have the state pay you fuckall is ridiculous.
or prisoners. It even says it in the US constitution that slavery is legal for prisoners.
Guess what you turn into if you skip Jury Duty…
you know, I’m 36 and Iv’e never had to do jury duty. I kind of want to, because one of my autistic special interests is court
I did jury duty a bit over a year ago. It was a really interesting experience to see the machinary of the justice system operating.
I was chairperson in our jury. Reading our verdict to the court, with the accused sitting maybe 10 meters away was quite nerve-wracking. But, we did the right thing, justice was dispensed that day.
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I mean, that’s literally what every country in the entire world would do if their existence or culture was at risk of being destroyed. Who the fuck would just roll over and allow someone to kill their family and rape their resources? Is that you?
um. folks where drafted for korea and viet nam. No ones family was at risk in america nor was one inch of us soil at risk.
Was there no hardship exception where you were? That’s unreal. I’m pretty sure they asked at the beginning of the selection process when I served if anyone needed to be dismissed for financial hardship. I think they even used not being able to pay for food as an example of what meets the threshold for an actual hardship.
My trial ended up lasting about 3 weeks and I want to say my check was around $115 and included “mileage”… Lol. I was unemployed at the time, otherwise I would have been pissed. Definitely not doable for a lot of people.
“My boss is demanding I break the law” is not a legitimate hardship for the juror; rather, it’s a crime being committed against the juror.
Is that legal?
Yes. It may vary by location, but in my area you get $15 a day from the court for going to jury duty. Employers are not required to pay you for time you are on jury duty.
Not even enough to cover parking and lunch.
That is awesome. I don’t get why people don’t want to serve on juries anyway? It’s a civic duty and it will probably be only once in your life. It’s an interesting experience!
It is interesting, but it’s also frustrating, and forced, effectively uncompensated work. I say ‘effectively’ uncompensated because they pay you a token amount that may have been adequate 100 years ago but now is not. Indeed, many people wind up making negative money when taking in the cost of travel and food, to say nothing of actual missed pay from their normal job.
That said it is actually kind of easy to get out of it if you really want to most of the time. When I served, the judge accepted any reasonable excuse from those who needed to leave. The most annoying part though was that it felt like the attorneys liked wasting time on irrelevant bullshit.
Additionally, when the judge asks if there’s any reason you can’t serve you can state you will never vote against your conscience regardless of the law, and that if you don’t believe a person should be punished you will not vote them guilty no matter what the law says. They do not want and will not take someone who votes their conscience above all else.
I’ll forever be annoyed at myself for a reply that got me out of jury duty.
I do understand the importance of the concept and I am willing to serve. My only objection so far is how wasteful it can be. I got called up several years in a row …. To miss work and sit in a dingy basement all day until being excused as “not needed”. I even understand the point that the court has to be ready, but there’s got to be a way to make it less inconvenient to “stand by”.
So the one time my jury duty might have turned into doing something useful for society in return for my inconvenience , I get called to the bench and was asked a few questions. Unfortunately I got hit with anxiety and babbled something that I recognized afterwards as the exact opposite as intended, and was immediately excused.
Edit: fine, I’ll say it. The people who would use it to get out of jury duty probably wouldn’t take their responsibility seriously anyway. I attempted to say something like “I hold the police to a higher standard as a witness since that is their job”, and it came out as “yes, I always believe the police”. Wtf?
You often don’t get paid or don’t get paid nearly enough. Too many people like paycheque to paycheque to be able to do that.
And in extreme cases, you can get sequestered, where you’re expected to basically put your life on hold for the duration of the trial, which complete bullshit and feels as if you’re being punished.
Sequestering is absolutely not bullshit. It’s done for very important reasons and judges are very careful about not ordering it unless it’s truly necessary.
I remember this post from Reddit. I never understood how employers could be this dense when it comes to jury duty. I’m glad they got called out.
This isn’t malicious compliance, it’s compliance with the law to the very letter. Good job.
Yeah, like, it doesn’t even read like OP intended for the owner to get into trouble, he was just trying not to get himself in trouble.
Judge was based AF.
I’m sorry but /c/thathappened
