No excuses: Doctors, lawyers, seniors face jury duty

A new law that took effect Jan. 1 eliminates several automatic exemptions from jury duty, meaning that persons over 65, doctors and lawyers will now have to serve.

"No one can be excused now," said Circuit Court Clerk Thomas Smith, simply based on their age or occupation. Exceptions will be granted for medical hardship -- requiring a doctor's recommendation -- or for certain other hardship cases.

"It puts us all in the same jury selection pool," said David Haines, general counsel for the Administrative Office of the Courts.

While everyone must serve, Smith said every attempt is made to work with a potential juror's schedule and allow for special events like scheduled travel, weddings or other commitments.

Smith said eliminating the age exemption was actually requested by some senior citizens, who wanted to serve and felt they were being discriminated against.

Selecting the jury pool is the responsibility of the Circuit Court judge. In Bedford County, a CD-ROM containing a list of driver's license holders is obtained from the state every two years, and a computer program is used to randomly select names from that list.

A new jury pool is selected every six months. Most of the people from that pool are assigned to one of four "panels," with each panel serving anywhere from four to six weeks. If you serve on a jury panel, you will be called in for the jury selection process whenever there is a jury trial during that four-to-six-week window. You may or may not be selected for any particular jury.

Also drawn from the jury pool are the members of the grand jury, which meets once a month during the six-month period.

It's possible that some of the attorneys who might now have to serve as part of a jury panel won't end up having to serve on any actual juries. Smith admitted that a lawyer might end up being rejected by one side or the other during the jury selection process if the lawyer has a particular connection to the judge or any of the lawyers who are trying the case. But the lawyer would still have to go through the motions of being part of the panel and showing up for the process.

Smith said those who don't respond when called to serve jury duty risk a $500 fine.

-- The Associated Press contributed to this report.