By Esther C. Baird
Published in the Boston Parent’s Paper Magazine in March 2007:
I’d never been called for jury duty. Probably because I’d moved every two years since I was 18. So I knew it was simply a matter of time before the system caught up with me in my stable Northshore existence. And I was happy to be found. Just not, I groused as I got the little postcard in the mail, when my daughter was only two and I was seven months pregnant.
I had already played the deferral card last fall and had no excuses left. The day I was called, my daughter was at pre-school where, because of my jury duty, I had signed her up for a one-day extended program. I knew she was safe and happy. But she had no school the next day, I had no family in the area, nor could my husband take the day off. What was I supposed to do if I got impaneled? Did I have any rights as a parent? What would happen to my daughter?
It turned out that I was not alone in my concerns.
Chris McGinness, a stay at home mom in Ipswich, wasn’t sure how to plan for her jury duty. “I know that I had advance notice regarding the date,” she said. “But there was no indication of how long I would have to serve. It’s not acceptable to line up child care for the week and then cancel when you are not selected.”
And lining up such child care, if it’s even possible, can be very stressful if the children in question have only had limited exposure to daycare or babysitting situations. That was my primary concern as I wondered what to do with my daughter, and it was McGinness’ worry as well. “I made the choice to stay at home and be a mom full time,” she explained. “We’d never had a babysitter come for more than few hours at time. It would have been tough for my daughter, and I know that my mind certainly would not have been focused on what was going on in the court room if I was impaneled.”
Betsy Bridge of Groton found herself in the same situation and decided to do something about it. She contacted her state senator, Steven C. Panagiotakos, and he agreed that she had a legitimate issue that needed addressing. Together they created Senate Bill 2225 and submitted it to the 2003/2004 session. It called for an act allowing those with sole custody and responsibility for a child under the age of 10 to claim an exemption from jury duty at the state level. Unfortunately the bill did not pass.
In an effort to understand why, I contacted the Office of Jury Commissioner. What I learned surprised me. Massachusetts is actually rather progressive when it comes to jury law. In 1988 it became the first state to adopt a ‘one day/one trial’ system statewide. This means that when called to state jury duty we are required to show up for one day, and if not impaneled, we are dismissed and will not be called again for three years. If we are impaneled, it is only for the length of one trial.
Prior to the one day/one trial system, citizens were called to sit in jury pools or participate on juries, as needed, for 30 days. As a stay at home mom I found planning for even one day to be stressful – – I couldn’t imagine 30! Naturally many people felt the same way and, under the old system, large swaths of the population became legally exempt. In turn, this created jury pools with little diversity.
I spoke to the Jury Commissioner for the Commonwealth, Pamela J. Wood. “The benefit of the one day/one trial system is that juries are actually truly representative of our population,” she said. “We do not want whole classes of the population exempt.”
She added, “If you were on trial, say for a parenting issue such as disciplining your child in public, you would want a jury that might include parents like yourself. But if whole classes were exempt, you could end up with a jury that had no potential to include parents who might understand your perspective.”
I took her point.
Wood went on to add that for parents who are truly in a situation where they can not find sustainable child care, there is a time during the jury selection process to claim a hardship. She said, “On a case by case basis it is hard to imagine that people can’t get free for the one day. I admit I’ve heard the occasional stories of judges not exempting caregivers when they claim a hardship, but in general I find judges to be understanding when parents are faced with no backup childcare.”
While I was beginning to appreciate her argument, I still felt that for some parents even one day presented a challenge. Beverly mom Ann Gavin was called to jury duty when her son was four months old and nursing full time. “He wouldn’t take bottles of any kind, so pumping wasn’t an option,” said Gavin. Feeling that she had no choice she said, “I just brought him with me to jury duty. When I got there they told me I couldn’t bring him inside and gave me a note deferring me for one year.”
While Gavin’s deferral could have been submitted via mail, the bill that Senator Panagiotakos was seeking to pass would alleviate this concern altogether while still allowing those who could find childcare to serve.
This issue is still one that Panagiotakos is hoping to resolve. In fact, recently the Senator’s office re-filed the bill. It is now named Senate Bill 1000 and has already been sent to a Judiciary Committee for study.
Senator Panagiotakos commented. “Finding responsible, reliable and affordable childcare during a work day is difficult. This legislation recognizes that sometimes parental duties are forced to come before civic duties.”
Echoing the Senator’s comment, many of the parents I spoke to acknowledged that jury duty was important and not something they were trying to ‘get out of’. Rather, it was simply a matter of timing.
Kathye Schattner operates the national Family Friendly Jury Initiative website from her home in Lexington, Kentucky. She tracks the progress of all relevant legislation and provides resources for people interested in advocating family friendly jury laws in their own states. “All we are looking for is a temporary and optional deferment of jury duty,” she explained. “We aren’t saying that primary caregivers of children can’t serve on jury duty, we know that most want to and many are in a position to do so.”
As for me, when I showed up for jury duty feeling worried and stressed I was surprised to find that it was the judge’s welcoming speech that calmed my nerves. Judge David Lowy was presiding that day at the Salem court house. He spoke graciously explaining that as Americans we had three civic duties: the draft (when applicable), participating in the census, and jury duty.
He then told this story. “On President Truman’s first day out of office, a reporter asked him how it felt to go from being the most powerful man in the free world to simply an ordinary citizen.” Judge Lowy paused, scanned the jury pool, and then concluded. “Truman replied that he was ‘rather enjoying the promotion.’”
Suddenly I wanted to be there. I wanted to sit in the court room and perform my civic duty. I wanted to exercise my right as an ordinary citizen. It felt so real and tangible. But, even more tangible was the fact that I truly didn’t have back up care for my daughter. Thankfully, after a morning of waiting, I was let go.
Later I contacted Judge Lowy and asked him what he would have done if I had claimed a hardship – would he have released me?
He reiterated what Wood said regarding the importance that all segments of society be heard as jurors. “And I have found that over the course of my career most stay at home parents truly want to serve.” But he admitted that, “the integrity of the trial requires 100% concentration.” To that end, if a parent approached his bench claiming a hardship, feeling that the care or safety of their child was not adequate, then he concluded, “I have to trust their take on the situation and in such cases I would excuse them.”
I walked away from the whole experience with a new found respect for our state’s jury system. But I also know that the “what if” of jury duty looms large in my mommy-mind. ‘What if’ the one day leads to a longer jury commitment?
Should Senate Bill1000 pass this year we’ll have one less ‘what if’ in our parenting lives – and that’s a verdict I fully support!
Sidebar Content: “What Can You Do to Support Family Friendly Jury Laws?”
- To track or read the exact language of State Senator Panagiotakos’ bill, visit http://www.mass.gov/legis/ltsform.htm. The phrase to search on in the field provided is, Senate Bill 1000. In addition contact your state senator to let them know of your support for this bill.
- Visit the Family Friendly Jury Duty website to learn what resources are available to you: www.familyfriendlyjuryduty.org
- Learn more about the Massachusetts state jury system at the Office for the Jury Commission homepage: www.mass.gov/courts/jury/introduc.htm