No shows to Guantanamo

What happens when you blow off jury duty?

Out of 27 persons on the court docket this week in Mono County who were cited with failing to appear for jury duty, only six appeared on Thursday to explain their whereabouts on the original date of summons.

Each had their own excuse as to why they had not appeared for their civic duty, ranging from, “I got overwhelmed at work and forgot,” to “I picked up the summons in my mailbox at about 10:30 the morning of the date I was supposed to be in court. When I called the court to see if I could still come in they said no.”

Jury Commissioner Hector Gonzalez explained to The Sheet that no show jurors are a common issue in Mono County because of the uniqueness of juror availability.

“We have one of the smallest populations to draw from in the State,” he explained. “This means we have to ask people to do their civic duty more often than other places. People get burned out.”

Another issue in Mono County is that many summons sent to local P.O. boxes actually belong to second homeowners who may only be picking up their mail every few months.

“People are not getting mail delivered to their homes; they have to go to the post office,” Gonzalez said. It’s hard to get the word out especially when a lot of people, even locals, change P.O. boxes as often as their underwear, he added.

Case in point was Jay Gratz, one of the FTA jurors on the list that actually showed up on Thursday.

“The court has my old P.O. Box,” Gratz explained. To which presiding Judge Stan Eller replied, “Well can we have your new one?”

“Lastly, you may have noticed that a lot of people on the fail to appear list have Spanish surnames,” Gonzalez said. “A lot of Spanish-speakers do not understand the summons and may even be afraid of it.”

Sometimes, people using other’s names will get a summons but not actually be a citizen, according to Gonzalez. Or, a new, legitimate citizen who still does not know a lot of English may get summoned.

“The level of English needed to get your citizenship is a lot lower than the level of English needed to sit on a jury and understand what is going on [or to understand the summons],” Gonzalez explained.

An example of this was Cecilia Pezoa, another of the few FTA jurors that appeared on Thursday. Pezoa spoke little English so Eller took her off the jury duty list.

So what else can happen to people who don’t show up for jury duty?

“We send them to Guantanamo,” Gonzalez said with a chuckle. “Oh wait, President Obama said we have to shut that place down.”

In all seriousness, Mono County judges have a tendency to try to be understanding when people fail to appear, Gonzalez said.

“The first thing we do is send an order to show cause for the failure to appear,” Gonzalez said. “This means that you have to come to court and explain to the judge why you didn’t show up.” This is what the 27 FTA Jurors on the court docket this past Thursday were expected to do.

“Most of the time if you have a good reason then the judges are pretty accommodating and you just get put back into the pool again,” he said. “If you fail to show up to the failure to appear order, then the judge could decide to put a warrant of attachment out on you, which means if you are stopped by law enforcement you can be picked up.”

Out of the 21 FTA jurors who failed to show up again on Thursday, Eller issued these warrants of attachment to at least half of them. For the others, he requested that the court review their addresses to make sure they were correct.

Gonzalez said that it is possible that you could be fined when you show up to explain why you failed to appear, “but judges here don’t like to do that.”

Jury pool information is pulled from DMV and Elections Department records, and cross-referenced.

“We figure that people who vote and have driver’s licenses create a good random sampling of eligible jurors,” Gonzalez said, which means if you have both then you are a shoo-in for a jury summons.

The number of FTAs on the docket this week was not unusual, but the way all 27 were clumped together is, according to Gonzalez.

“That many FTAs in one day is large, usually we spread them out over several days.”

So what should you do if you receive a jury duty summons but you can’t, or don’t want to go?

“Don’t ignore it, call us and talk about it,” Gonzalez said.

Some of the most common excuses for not wanting or being able to attend jury duty are, “I have to work” and “I’m a student,” according to Deputy Jury Commissioner Alyse Caton.

“One request to be excused that really sticks out in my head was someone who had to attend their brother-in-law’s funeral,” Caton said. “The brother-in-law had been gored by a goat in the mountains.”

There are even situations where you could be taken off of the summons list, permanently, but this feat has very specific criteria that again, you would need to call and discuss with the Jury Commissioner.

If you just don’t feel like taking the straight and narrow approach, there are many websites that have gathered excuses for getting out of your duty to society. One such site, http://madtbone.tripod.com/jury_duty.htm, has collected more than 100 such excuses (some have worked, some have not). Below is a sampling from the site of just how far some people will go.

Excuse 23: “I’m 67 and my bladder causes me to pee quite often. I WILL NOT serve unless you can guarantee I can pee every 30 minutes.’”

Excuse 82: “I am aroused by trials, and spontaneously get erections, I hope the other jurors don’t mind.”

Excuse 93: Tell them you can spot guilty people instantly.