Out of state college students and jury duty...they have no rights (Boston: low income)

[marishka]

I am an out of state college student and attend college for 42% of the year in Massachusetts. I find it exceptionally rude that I got hung up on twice by the office of the jury commissioner becuase I brought to their attention that I am neither a resident or an inhabitant for over 50% of the year. The office of the jury commissioner said that since I was a college student I had no rights and that I had to go to jury duty. I cannot afford college as is, and by forcing me to go to jury duty I must give up a day of classes and pay heavily for it by letting my grades be docked, and to lose the cost of college for the day. I find it unnecessary for the court system of Mass to use out of state college students from this college at a higher percentage than the in state college student usage, and most students here are in state. I also find it unnecessary for the state to punish college students when the wealthy cape dwellers could more than adequately fill those spots that we fill, while they sit at home and enjoy their wealth while us college students work hard to make ends meet by working a job or two and keeping up with classes, we are more busy than the Mass residents, and they should fill jury duty not out of state poor college students who do not meet either jury requirement.

[theh]

Isn't there a way to write back and dispute your jury duty if you are not going to be in town? When I was a student in Amherst and my home residence was listed on the other side of the state as North Attleboro, I received a letter telling me I had jury duty in Attleboro/Boston/some place in eastern mass. I recall doing something...not sure what exactly, it was a long time ago. But it was either a letter or a form I had to fill out...and explained to them that I go to school two hours away in Amherst and had no way of getting to wherever on that date. They let me off.

[CaseyB]

You can postpone your jury duty for at least 6 months. How did they get your name, anyway? Are you registered to vote here? Jury duty can be a pain for a lot of people, but I'm not understanding your rant about the "wealthy".

[CTKel]

I was told that the colleges provide student lists, but I don't know if that's true or not. I went to college in MA while maintaining permanent residence in CT (voting, license, etc.) I was called in both states within a year and expected to serve both. I was called for MA jury duty during winter break, when I was in CT. I had to drive to MA the day before in order to call to see if I needed to report (could not call the number from out of state) but was excused at that point- it was the day before Christmas Eve and they weren't having all jurors report or something. For CT, I deferred to summer break when I would be there. It really bothered me that anyone can be called to serve twice in a year like that, and expected in two different states.

[marishka]

Originally Posted by CaseyB

You can postpone your jury duty for at least 6 months. How did they get your name, anyway? Are you registered to vote here? Jury duty can be a pain for a lot of people, but I'm not understanding your rant about the "wealthy".

I can postpone it though there is no convenient time for me to postpone it to. I cannot afford to stay in a hotel overnight if i postpone it until the summer break, the court only covers up to $50. Also every day I am in classes in which the teachers although generally compassionate, would not let me miss class for something as trivial as jury duty.

My rant on the wealthy who live on the cape stems from my anger over why the court system uses a higher percentage of people from the school who are in the lower middle/ lower class socioeconomic level from other states, while the residents of Mass who live on the cape and come from socioeconomic levels of upper middle/ wealthy (in the eyes of where I grew up) represent a much smaller percentage. The split of out of state lower middle/ lower class to in state upper middle/ wealthy class is approximately 70%-30% of all students sent to jury duty while the ratio of students here is approximately 70% in state to 30% out of state. There is an obvious and unfair skew to this

[TheWereRabbit]

Why don't you just explain your situation to your profs. I can't imagine any reasonable professor docking your grades for such a situation

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by marishka

I can postpone it though there is no convenient time for me to postpone it to. I cannot afford to stay in a hotel overnight if i postpone it until the summer break, the court only covers up to $50. Also every day I am in classes in which the teachers although generally compassionate, would not let me miss class for something as trivial as jury duty.

My rant on the wealthy who live on the cape stems from my anger over why the court system uses a higher percentage of people from the school who are in the lower middle/ lower class socioeconomic level from other states, while the residents of Mass who live on the cape and come from socioeconomic levels of upper middle/ wealthy (in the eyes of where I grew up) represent a much smaller percentage. The split of out of state lower middle/ lower class to in state upper middle/ wealthy class is approximately 70%-30% of all students sent to jury duty while the ratio of students here is approximately 70% in state to 30% out of state. There is an obvious and unfair skew to this

If you really go to school here for less than six months a year, you may be able to get out of jury duty: The Jury System - Overview of Jury Service. It looks like you can postpone for up to a year, so I'd recommend deferring until spring or fall break. Its a sucky way to spend your break, but the dorm will probably still be open. Alternately, most jurors don't actually serve, so if you coose to miss class you will more than likely only miss one day.

Do you go to school in Barnstable County? Unless you do, no one from Cape Code can serve jury duty for you because jury duty is assigned by county. My wife got called for jury duty in Middlesex County right after we moved to Norfolk County and she was excused.

As for your rant, are you to have us believe that the Commonwealth a) determines student family income levels and then b) purposely chooses lower income students from out of state? Were were you even able to find reliable statistics on jury duty selection for college students? I agree that the jury system that selects out of state college students is pretty unfair, but I don't think the Commonwealth goes out of its ways to hurt low-income people. Unfortunately, this is one of those laws that only effects people who can't possible vote against it, so there isn't really much that can be done. It may not be as bad as it seems, at least it wasn't for MIT students 15 years ago (MIT Students Not Inconvenienced by Massachusetts Jury Duty System - The Tech).

[marishka]

I really cannot understand how you can live in such a controlling state. One in which people who have no say in the government (in the form of voting) can be forced to serve as part of the judicial system. You brought up a really valid point. Also I do believe that jury selection is not totally random. There really was not a totally reliable source for the statistics and they are more of a generalization however, they are close to the experiences that many of us here have observed. It is irresponsible and unethical to do this. It falls on the shoulders of the residents here to protect the students from out of state, because we protect you from having to serve in our state, and it is irresponsible and unethical of the courts to punish low income out of state college students by forcing us to be part of the system that legally tortures victims.