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I'm not a foster parent, but I'm a single Mom of a daughter whom I adopted. Here are my thoughts:1. You can always request to be exempted or deferred from jury duty, because of family responsibilities. Exemption is rarely granted, but deferment to a more convenient date is commonly granted. If there's a week when your kids could stay with Grandma, or go to camp, or whatever, that would probably work fine. And if they have serious special needs, and you have a physician's note indicating that you need to be the caregiver, you might well get excused.2. Most jury duty, nowadays, is "one day or one trial". The vast majority of jurors winds up serving only one day, because they are not selected for a case or are selected, but then excused because of attorney challenges.. Depending on your children's school schedules, if your trial is one day, you can probably arrange to take them to school in the morning, and then have them go home with another family after school and remain there until you get out and pick them up.3. If you are selected for a jury in a case that lasts more than one day, you may be able to get yourself excused on hardship grounds, especially if the case looks like it will run long or if the jury is likely to be sequestered (required to stay in a hotel with no contact with the outside world) in a high-profile case.4. Normally, if you are selected for a garden variety case, you will be needed for a week or less. You come in at the start of the day, and go home at around 5 p.m. I can't imagine that foster care would prohibit you from hiring a babysitter to pick the kids up at school at the end of the school day and take them home, and then stay with them until you arrive.I 've had jury duty when my daughter was younger. When she was in day care, I was picked for a week long trial (drug possession with intent to distribute). I dropped her off a little before my usual time, and picked her up before daycare closed each day. Basically, it was the same schedule I had with my job, so Becca really didn't get any sense that things were different. On Friday afternoon, as I was the foreperson of the jury, I had to let the judge know that we were deadlocked, with one holdout who was convinced that the defendant was set up by the police, though the evidence against the defendant was very clear and we later learned that he had a long history as a low-level drug dealer. The judge decided not to require further deliberation, declared a mistrial, and released the jury.I also had jury duty when my daughter was in elementary school. It was one day or one trial, and I was excused by lunchtime. As it happened, a friend and I had once driven the prosecutor and his family in a parade, using my friend's antique car, so there could have been the appearance of impropriety. In those days, I had a driving babysitter pick my daughter up after school -- she was in a private school some distance from our home, and I worked -- and stay with her till I returned home. And that is what occurred on the day of my jury duty. In fact, I went to work when I was excused, and returned home as usual.By the time my daughter was in high school, she could get home on public transportation and could be trusted to remain there doing homework, taking the dog out, making a snack, etc., till I returned. So if I had been picked for jury duty, I would have had no trouble unless the jury was sequestered. In that case, if I couldn't get excused, I would have used a babysitter at night, though Becca would have been a bit miffed at having one, or she could have stayed with a friend who lived two blocks away, though I would then have had to kennel our dog, who didn't do well in kennels. (That family had allergies and could not have accommodated the dog.)Frankly, jury duty isn't a big deal, if you normally work and use child care for the times when kids aren't in school. The hours are similar to many people's work schedules -- roughly 9-5 -- and most people aren't inconvenienced for more than a day. And if you have a new batch of foster kids in the home and aren't confident about how they would behave with a babysitter, you can almost always defer your service to a more convenient week. It's very rare that a jury is sequestered -- the case has to be as "big" as the O.J. Simpson trial, where jurors had to be away from families, TV, radio, phone, etc. -- and in such cases, you might get excused.Sharon
Thanks for your input. This is my first time ever getting jury duty. I just wished it had happened when I was younger and had no responsibilities. I'm almost 50, so I knew they would get me sooner or later. My kids have after school activities until 6:00 p.m., so I should be okay. The agency is aware and will take them to their family visits if need be.garry970
I have been called for jury duty twice--it is usually a sitting and waiting game. They have x amount of upcoming trials and they pick juries for them on the same day. There will be lots of other people there so chances are you will only be there the one day and won't actually get picked to be on the jury. In my state if you are picked to be on the jury you get paid ----9 dollars a day if you can believe it. Usually your work place will pay you for the days you are gone serving as a juror. Sometimes if you get picked to be on the actual jury the defendant can change their plea right before the trial and then the trial is cancelled so you could be picked for the jury and not actually have to serve.
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