Do I need to fill out the juror questionnaire?

[bcla]

I know, revived thread, but I can talk about my experiences.

I've never received any sort of questionnaire. It's always a summons with a section to fill out if requesting an excuse. In California it's a "one day" service that satisfies the requirement that one can be sent for jury service once per 12 months. If you show up for any reason, are assigned to be on-call, or are on standby for 5 days, the potential juror has a valid excuse for the next 12 months to get out of state jury service.

http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/onedayonetrial.pdf

Then there's a federal jury summons, which I've received once. They only excuse someone who has actually served on a jury within the past 12 months. Being in the jury box with dismissal isn't enough. I had actually served on a state court jury, so I had an excuse.

I also have an issue with my address. I keep on getting jury summons for the wrong county. I've probably gotten about four or five summons from this county where I'm not a resident. At first, the excuse list didn't include a place to state what county, but the more recent ones do. Somehow I haven't gotten a summons for the county where I do live, but my wife has.

 

[kfm52736]

After I had moved counties years ago, I got pulled over for a minor speeding ticket. The officer ran my info and said there was an arrest warrant out for me. I laughed and said no way. He said it was for failure to appear or respond to jury duty summons. I had to go to a court and prove that I never received the summons since I had moved.

This was LA county.

I have never received a jury duty summons, only a juror qualification questionnaire. They are not the same things. The questionnaire is not requiring you to appear anywhere; it is just a series of questions designed to see whether you qualify to be called for jury duty.

The questionnaire always says that if you don't return it within the required number of days, "you are liable to be summoned at your expense for completion of the questionnaire at this office." But like I said, it's been 12 years and 3 or 4 questionnaires later, and I have never received a summons to come fill it out in person. If I ever did receive a summons, either for the questionnaire or jury duty, that would be a different story and I would appear. They're probably a little more diligent about following up on an actual summons.