Can You Be Picked For Jury Duty If Your Not A Registered Voter?

In the American court system, criminal defendants are guaranteed the right to trial by a "jury of their peers". In Pennsylvania, a pool of potential jurors is randomly selected from the local population of individuals eligible for jury duty.

Pennsylvania state law establishes that "Every citizen of this Commonwealth who is of the required minimum age for voting for Country or local officials and who resides in the county shall exist qualified to serve as a juror therein".

Exemptions include those who:

are illiterate or cannot speak English
have a mental or physical inability
have been convicted of a crime punishable by a year or more in jail.

How Are Potential Jurors Called in Pennsylvania?

The showtime phase in jury selection is summoning a pool of potential jurors from the list of local citizens eligible to serve on a jury in Pennsylvania, every bit described higher up.

In most PA counties, the list of names used to randomly call people for jury duty is created by combining the county voter registration rolls and the Pennsylvania DMV licensed driver records.

Receiving a Jury Duty Summons in Pennsylvania

If your name is randomly selected for the jury pool through the process described to a higher place, you receive a jury summons in the mail instructing you to appear for jury selection on a pre-set day.

While there are a few excuses for getting out of jury pick in PA, most people summoned will have to report to the courthouse for the next phase of the juror selection process, voir dire.

The Juror Selection Process, or "Voir Dire"

Just because you qualify to be a juror and are summoned for jury pick, doesn't hateful that you will be selected to be a juror on a example. The process of "Voir Dire", the actual act of jury selection, is how judges, defense attorneys, and prosecutors actually choose the individuals who will sit on the juries for upcoming criminal and ceremonious cases.

During the voir dire procedure, each lawyer will enquire the puddle of potential jurors a series of questions almost their background, beliefs, prejudices, or relationships with any political party to the example. While the goal is to select an impartial jury to render a verdict, each chaser will as well seek to exclude any jurors who seem to exist more likely to vote against their customer's interests. While jury candidates are instructed to be open up and truthful when answering such questions, the juror selection process is likewise where about individuals who don't wish to serve on a trial find a way to be excused from further juror duties.

What Happens Afterwards Jury Pick Day

If you are selected to serve on a jury, yous will exist provided with the trial engagement, and must return to serve on the jury for the elapsing of the trial and deliberations. If you were not selected to serve on any jury during the voir dire procedure, you tin can go home, and your Pennsylvania jury duty obligations are complete.

Yous will receive nominal Pennsylvania jury duty pay for the jury choice twenty-four hour period, equally well as for any days served on a jury. Once your service is complete, you won't be summoned for jury duty again until Pennsylvania re-adds you to the potential juror pool.

Dress code for jury duty in PA

Jurors reporting for jury duty or jury selection in the state of Pennsylvania are expected to wearing apparel professionally, in a manner advisable for a court room.

Nigh courthouses suggest dress ranging from business casual to business attire. For men, this means slacks or khakis and a polo or button-down shirt, potentially with a tie or adjust jacket. For women, this means a professional-looking pair of pants or a skirt, cardigan, sweater, twinset, or shirt.

As a juror, you are expected to maintain a professional and respectable appearance while performing your duties. Hats should never be worn in a courtroom, and you should avoid wearing shorts, t-shirts, tanktops, or anything printed with logos or slogans.

While jury duty is a civic requirement for all eligible citizens in Pennsylvania, the country restricts how frequently you can be summoned for jury duty in order to ensure a fresh jury pool and prevent undue hardship by existence summoned too oftentimes.

Pennsylvania Jury Duty Summons Frequency:

Potential jurors may be selected no more than than one time every three years, or one yr if service was for less than three days.

While there are a number of ways to exist legally excused from jury duty in Pennsylvania, failing to announced when summoned for jury selection or jury duty without an excuse is illegal, and can outcome in legal repercussions.

Nether Pennsylvania law, everyone who fails to announced when summoned for jury duty without being excused may be held in antipathy of courtroom and could be fined upwards to $500.00, imprisoned for a term no more than ten days, or both..

Employers in Pennsylvania are too forbidden from penalizing employees who miss work for jury duty.