Skipping jury duty? Think again

CABARRUS COUNTY, N.C.,None — Anyone considering skipping jury duty might want to think twice, because the Cabarrus County Courthouse is cracking down on people who shirk their civil responsibility.

Thanks to a new program, officials can now keep better track of people who skip jury duty. Individuals who skip a first time are given a second chance to show up to jury duty. But if they don’t bother showing up a second time they can face jail time and fines.

“We’ve had a tremendous problem of people not coming in to court when they are summoned to do so and that’s the reason we are doing this,” said Erwin Spainhour, Cabarrus County Courthouse senior resident superior court judge.

Karan Whitley, trial court coordinator at the Cabarrus County Courthouse, said they average anywhere from 50 to 60 people a month skipping jury duty.

“We’ve known for a long time we’ve had a problem with people not showing up for jury duty,” Whitley said. “We just needed a better method of trying to get them in without it taking a lot of time.”

In the past, the courthouse would just send a letter to a person who missed jury duty. Now, Whitley creates an Order to Show cause form that is signed by Spainhour and then sent to the Cabarrus County Clerk of Courts Office.

From there the form is taken by the Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Office who visits the home of the person who skipped jury duty to serve the Order to Show cause form, just like they would a subpoena or other legal document.

After a person is served an Order to Show Cause form, he or she must appear in open court and give cause as to why he didn’t appear in court. If the judge determines the person can serve then they must pick a week from a list of potential dates to serve on jury duty.

At that point, the person hasn’t committed a crime just by skipping that first round of jury duty. But if a person skips the date they selected, then the court can take legal action.

“Once they come in and are specifically ordered in open court to serve, then that’s when the contempt citation comes next,” Spainhour said. “If they don’t come in a second time, that is a crime.”

Spainhour said a person charged with contempt of court could be sentenced to 30 days in jail and a $500 fine.

On average there is a jury pool of about 100 people a week and of those, at least 10 people don’t show up, officials said.

That may sound like a small number of people skipping out. But with both defense attorneys and prosecutors able to dismiss a certain number of potential jurors, based on how they respond to questioning, it’s important for everyone to show up, Whitley said.

“So you have to have a sufficient number of people in the jury pool to get a jury of 12,” Whitley said. “If it were your case in court you would certainly want to have a sufficient amount of people show up for jury service so you could have a fair and impartial jury.”

WSOC