Jury Duty Federal Court

I am summoned for Jury Duty tomorrow (fed court) They sent me a memo saying no cell phones. Just wondering if they are really strict? They wrote to leave it at home or you have to check it at the courthouse.

Also I had rescheduled once (from OCtober) due to Location (they had sent me to the LI court house and I requested Bklyn since im in queens)

Does anyone if I go there, if i can ask to be excused again? I have a 2.5 yr old that I drop off at daycare and Im currently 7 months pregnant. Will they take that as an excuse? SHould I even bother?

TIA

Re: Jury Duty Federal Court

last time i went to bklyn fed it was for a special jury and the questionnaire asked to explain why if you needed to be excused (i was in my last semester of grad school and the judge said the jury had to stay away from the internet and the news for the duration of the trial - told them i couldn't) ... but on cell phones, yes, we did have to check them ... it was quite strict - you had to turn them off and hand them over before you went through the metal detectors ...

Re: Jury Duty Federal Court

Verybstrict. You can bring it but you will have to check it.

Re: Jury Duty Federal Court

As previously mentioned, you do have to check it but you can easily retrieve it during breaks if you need to step out to check messages. If I recall, they had a cart with bins and each phone went into it's own bin and you get a claim tag. Seemed to be a pretty organized and secure system.

Re: Jury Duty Federal Court

Get it over with if you can.

I did the fed jury duty in Brooklyn, and I remember it as a two week mandatory sit.
Cell phones had to be checked at the entry but as others said, could be retrieved during breaks.
I was on a panel of potential jurors, took one week to sit the jury and thankfully the entire jury was picked just before my interview number came up.
Trial lasted 8 weeks and was ultimately dismissed.

Re: Jury Duty Federal Court

I got picked for a Federal Grand Jury and the government virtually owned me every Tuesday for two years. We were each only allowed four Tuesdays off during that period. While it was a long time to serve, it was very interesting. We got to hear all sorts of potential cases from mail and medical fraud to porno and pedophiles, arsonists and mob guys. The mob guys sounded exactly like Hollywood had cast them and their vocabularies were hilariously limited to the F word.

It was amazing how hard a lot of those people worked on their scams, if they had put even a fraction of their efforts toward something legitimate they would have made legal fortunes.

Message edited 1/30/2012 6:29:33 PM.