Jury duty and felonies
Jan. 28th, 2008 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bktheirregularSaturday, I got a jury questionnaire from the State of New York. Given that I'm supposed to be receiving paperwork for a foreign work visa any day now, and I'm trying to gear up to head back to Athens, one might see a bit of a problem.
Still, I figured I should be honest. Which wasn't a problem until I hit the last question: have you served on a jury in the last four years?
Reviewing my LJ (hey, it's finally good for something!), I found an entry on January 4, 2006, talking about getting picked for a jury, as Juror Number Six. But that was in New Jersey, not New York, so I wasn't sure if it counted, and anyway, I'd managed to lose the letter confirming this sometime during the move to the City.
I called the number on the questionnaire, and was fed into an automated voice-mail-type questionnaire. They reached the question of having previously served on a jury, and the only answers they'd accept were "yes" or "no", with no provision for nuances. I answered "yes", because yeah, it was the truth, but I wasn't sure if they considered one day on a jury in New Jersey to count for their purposes.
At the end of that call, I got the statement that any lies that I'd told would be considered a felony. You can imagine how thrilled that left me. And when I looked up the New York County jury management help number, and got fed into another automated voice-mail-like information system, and got told that if I'd served one day on a jury, after September 2004, it didn't count ...
*headdesk*
(I called once more, and after about ten minutes, got an actual live person who said I shouldn't worry about going to prison over it, just get a copy of my papers in case there were any questions. But then the lady in the Bergen County court system said that New York wouldn't accept a letter from New Jersey. But she's sending me a copy of the letter anyway.)
(And when the lady in the New York office talked about "Jersey", I couldn't understand - it sounded like "Jur-see", and I was so wooly-headed I couldn't make the connection.)
Still, I figured I should be honest. Which wasn't a problem until I hit the last question: have you served on a jury in the last four years?
Reviewing my LJ (hey, it's finally good for something!), I found an entry on January 4, 2006, talking about getting picked for a jury, as Juror Number Six. But that was in New Jersey, not New York, so I wasn't sure if it counted, and anyway, I'd managed to lose the letter confirming this sometime during the move to the City.
I called the number on the questionnaire, and was fed into an automated voice-mail-type questionnaire. They reached the question of having previously served on a jury, and the only answers they'd accept were "yes" or "no", with no provision for nuances. I answered "yes", because yeah, it was the truth, but I wasn't sure if they considered one day on a jury in New Jersey to count for their purposes.
At the end of that call, I got the statement that any lies that I'd told would be considered a felony. You can imagine how thrilled that left me. And when I looked up the New York County jury management help number, and got fed into another automated voice-mail-like information system, and got told that if I'd served one day on a jury, after September 2004, it didn't count ...
*headdesk*
(I called once more, and after about ten minutes, got an actual live person who said I shouldn't worry about going to prison over it, just get a copy of my papers in case there were any questions. But then the lady in the Bergen County court system said that New York wouldn't accept a letter from New Jersey. But she's sending me a copy of the letter anyway.)
(And when the lady in the New York office talked about "Jersey", I couldn't understand - it sounded like "Jur-see", and I was so wooly-headed I couldn't make the connection.)
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-28 08:54 pm (UTC)Besides, why would the lady from the Bergen County office be more knowledgeable about what the New York County office will accept than the people who actually work in the New York County office?
Also, if there are any questions, you answered yes to having served on "a jury in the last four years." Which was, to the best of your knowledge, true. And the papers ought to be proof of this. Not your fault the questions didn't specify anything more than that.
*hugs* Hang in there, okay?