That's nice that you get paid the same either way, but I've been called twice - once while I was in school where if I didn't spend time studying I didn't pass, and more importantly, I wouldn't learn the information. I got called again a couple years later where I was working independently on my own software projects, where if I didn't ship, I didn't get paid.
I took the obvious rational choice of using every trick in the book to successfully get out of it both times. The alternative would be a potentially unbounded chunk of my time gone, and that much farther behind on my goals. Large companies can get a kind of diversification, but I'm sure jury duty hits small companies hard as well.
The system is broken. I get the need for civilian juries, but the cost should be more fairly distributed by encouraging jurors to show up by paying jurors a reasonable wage rather than the pittance of a couple dollars a day that is currently paid in most jurisdictions, and at the same time, let people opt out by just saying "I don't want to" without having to give a reason (or better yet, opt in instead). We'd raise wage high enough to get some target percentage (like, say, 50%) of called citizens motivated enough to show up, or possibly compensate jurors pro rata based off of 120% of their average declared income on the previous 2-3 years of tax returns.
We'd have to raise taxes by a small amount to cover these payouts, but that's completely reasonable as we're shifting the burden from randomly chosen individuals of whom unreasonable demands are made today to a more broad and even and shallow tax base. It's the same reason we pay road work crews a wage rather than randomly selecting every week who cleans the roads. And if we pay enough to still get 50% of jurors showing up completely volitionally, we'd still avoid the problem of "professional jurors" who would try to game the system by serving on many juries.
Letting people opt out or opt in would destroy the entire point of a jury. It'd turn what needs to be a representative random sample of the population into selection bias.
I think that a better solution would be for small companies, independent contractors, students, etc., to buy into an insurance pool; such that when they are selected for jury duty, they can be fairly compensated.
What we do now bears little relationship to "a representative random sample of the population". We deliberately rule out everybody who has any relevant knowledge or preexisting opinions about anything related to the case or the legal system, thereby making the sample far from random.
(I believe in Jury Nullification - meaning I think the jury has the responsibility to judge whether the law itself is unjust and if so refuse to convict under it - and I object on moral grounds to a fair number of existing laws. As a result of having these views, I have never been able to serve on a jury. I would only be able to serve if I lied to the judge about my beliefs.)
These are great points but I think 'economic hardship' is a valid reason to give, no? If you tell the judge your situation and ask to be excused (or defer it repeatedly). It sounds like you probably tried this but I mean tell them straight out 'I'm self-employed and at X days of this I no longer have rent/food/etc'.
Failing that the magic words are 'can you please explain about jury nullification and whether it is legal?'. It is my understanding that the jury nullification issue is toxic and will almost certainly get you dismissed.
Let's hypothetically say I'm a small business owner who doesn't get paid unless I put in the work, but I'm simultaneously a multi-millionaire putting away $500k/year because I work so much. Do you think a judge looking at my financial statements would agree that I have an economic hardship?
On the other hand, let's look at somebody working a salaried position who gets paid the same either way, whether he goes to work or serves on a jury. That's great for him, except he's also my employee, and now my (small) business takes the hit in identical expenses with less productivity.
I've heard the trick about jury nullification, and I would probably pull that card if I ever actually got into the courtroom, but I shouldn't need to go through all that effort, and what about the people who don't know about it?
It's been said that the only people serving on the jury are people who can't figure out how to get out of it. Having successfully gotten out of it twice with little to no effort, I don't believe that's true. Rather, I think the people serving on the jury are those who have nowhere else better to be. I don't mean to be immodest, but I think I'm a bright person, and I think that I would be a constructive addition to jury, but I and people like me just have better things to do.
Advice I got from a lawyer friend is that getting out of jury is very easy - just ignore the summons entirely and nothing will happen.
You correct that they won't accept any excuse but the system mails summons more or less at random and so the summonses go to many non-existent persons. Moreover, a letter isn't legally binding by itself - you can always say you never got it but since they get to so non-shows, the system never bothers to hunt-down those who never show.
About 25 years ago, I read about a sheriff simply rounding up an elevator full of persons at a county building when the jury pool was low. That is an exceptional case, but I believe that jurisdictions vary in how hard they chase no-shows.
I took the obvious rational choice of using every trick in the book to successfully get out of it both times. The alternative would be a potentially unbounded chunk of my time gone, and that much farther behind on my goals. Large companies can get a kind of diversification, but I'm sure jury duty hits small companies hard as well.
The system is broken. I get the need for civilian juries, but the cost should be more fairly distributed by encouraging jurors to show up by paying jurors a reasonable wage rather than the pittance of a couple dollars a day that is currently paid in most jurisdictions, and at the same time, let people opt out by just saying "I don't want to" without having to give a reason (or better yet, opt in instead). We'd raise wage high enough to get some target percentage (like, say, 50%) of called citizens motivated enough to show up, or possibly compensate jurors pro rata based off of 120% of their average declared income on the previous 2-3 years of tax returns.
We'd have to raise taxes by a small amount to cover these payouts, but that's completely reasonable as we're shifting the burden from randomly chosen individuals of whom unreasonable demands are made today to a more broad and even and shallow tax base. It's the same reason we pay road work crews a wage rather than randomly selecting every week who cleans the roads. And if we pay enough to still get 50% of jurors showing up completely volitionally, we'd still avoid the problem of "professional jurors" who would try to game the system by serving on many juries.