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Wrench #1: Grand Jury Summons

Opened my mail today and in it I found a summons from DC for GRAND jury duty - a required TWENTY SEVEN day summons.  And it falls perfectly in the middle of my planned trip, from late February until end of March.

What is Grand Jury service?  Apparently it's the "real deal:"

"Superior Court grand jurors serve for a 25-day term of service. The function of the grand jury is to investigate charges of crimes committed against the laws of the United States and/or of the District of Columbia. If the result of the investigation so warrants, the grand jury returns an indictment against the accused. There are a total of five Superior Court grand juries, each consisting of 23 persons. Three of the grand juries serve five days a week, Monday through Friday, for 25 workdays. The other two grand juries serve three days a week for 25 workdays. After the term of service is completed, grand jurors are summoned for two mandatory recall days to dispose of any unfinished business."

According to the Superior Court of DC web site I should be able to get a deferral, but I guess at some point I will still be required to serve an entire 25 days of jury duty:

"You may obtain a deferral of your grand jury service to a later time or request an excuse for reasons of medical infirmity or hardship by mail to: Superior Court Jurors' Office; Room 3130; 500 Indiana Avenue, N.W.; Washington, D.C. 20001; Attention: Grand Jury Specialist. You may reach us by telephone at 202-616-1519 (Grand Jury Specialist), or 202-879-4604. The Court expects any requests for grand jury deferrals or excuses to be submitted well in advance of your service. On the day of your grand jury enrollment, you should be fully prepared to serve as a grand juror for the next 27 days. Barring an emergency, there should be no impediments to your being able to serve on your reporting date. Please note that the option to defer your grand jury service is not available via eJuror Online Services."

While I think it will be interesting to participate, 27 days is just insane.  This type of thing must be horrible for employers - and could seriously impact/delay my ability to get a new job later in the year depending on when I can defer it. 

Hopefully I can get things to balance out so that it's fun and cool and doesn't get in my way, but that means making this happen in May or June most likely.  Ugh.

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Jeremy said…
Wow, that is amazing how long it lasts. I knew someone who had a grand jury duty (in North Carolina), but it was structured differently - if I recall it was 1-2 days a month, for a year. The total number of days served was probably about 15-20, but it only lasted a maximum of 2 days at a time. That was much easier to deal with from a work/employment perspective.
January 3, 2010 at 10:22 PM
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