This is what a SDNY (Southern District of New York) Federal Jury Duty summons looks like. The bottom part of the form has been cropped, so that my private information isn't made public. This will be the second time I'm asking for a deferral, and I need it for two reasons: (1) I expect that we'll be very busy at the office dealing with headaches from a new customer. (2) I don't want to travel to Lower Manhattan during the summer on potentially overcrowded subway cars on the Lexington Avenue line.
Travel to this courthouse takes me about 2 hours. If I find it hard enough to get up by 6 am to be at work at 8, imagine how much of a pain in the ass it will be for me to get up by 5:30, to be in court by 8:30. People from Northern Westchester are expected to go downtown, while people North of me are allowed to go to White Plains. This is not fair. But we are stuck with a system that is geared to impose hardships on the jurors, and make it easy for every other stake holder involved in court cases. No wonder why people try so hard to get out of jury duty.
The last two times I went to this courthouse for jury duty, I "served" by being available for a grand jury, but not being picked. (I like to imagine that this grand jury may have been investigating some of Trump & associates' crimes.) Last time, it was just before the pandemic struck. And I wasn't going to give up $194/day (before taxes) to get a measly $50/day plus a 4 hour round trip commute. So I asked for a deferral, and the pandemic gave me a year's reprieve. Now, I am asking for a short deferment, so that my service can be scheduled for cooler months. At that time, I will go into serve (dressed as Marian), and get this duty over and done with. Since a winter jury duty service will excuse me from being called for 4 years, I figure that with the right use of deferment requests, that I might reach 70 years of age before I get a "Must Serve" request. And if that's the case, I will have successfully avoided service at this god-awful location.
