"Since anyone can refuse to answer and get sent home, why is that not enough for you?"
Well that's what I'm asking. Are you sure about that?
They certainly don't give you the impression that's an option for you. All I see is that you are required to answer the questions and answer them honestly.
Okay I'll level. I'm not even the one who got the summons. My son got the summons and the more I look into all this the more concerning it is. There was a guy who missed his jury duty and ended up in jail for 10 days. There was a woman who looked up the Pinkerton principle or something on the internet during her time as a juror and was convicted of contempt of court for it, dodged jail time but had to do community service. On the questionnaire you're filling out an official legal document where not being accurate on your part can get you convicted of a crime and yet nowhere do they recommend that you get legal advice of your own.
The can is getting kicked down the road though because he got rescheduled from October to December and by then we'll have moved to another county and the first thing I'll make sure gets done is the official address change goes through for our driver's licenses. But it's probably going to happen again sometime and I need to get him ready and let him know what his options are.
As for me, I've always dodged it, mostly legally as far as I know. I was in the military and then I was a student and then I kept my driver's license address at my parent's house which I considered my permanent address as I moved around every couple of years although you're technically not supposed to do that, maybe. But I've still got my old bedroom at my parent's house and get a lot of mail there, but when I'd get a jury duty summons I could also say I don't actually reside in the county right now. One option seems to be to stay a student. It's always good to keep learning and if you want to get out of jury duty, or even the hassle of the process, that may be an option in some counties. Get a summons, register for an online class maybe even as an audit, and then, actually take and finish the class and even get your student I.D. like at a nearby community college, start getting your student discounts, and Bob's your uncle.
Another thing I didn't like seeing of course is their mask policy. Now it's optional. That means I have the option of wearing a mask to protect everyone from me and they have the option of not caring if I or in this case someone in my family gets infected and then brings it back to everyone else in the household. I don't go into any place for long so I don't mind wearing an N100 with goggles for 20 minutes or whatever, but jury duty? That's all day long. The goggles fog up after a few minutes. I don't see him or me for that matter being safe in that environment. Long covid is definitely a thing and jury duty shouldn't be a death sentence or even mess up your health like there is the very substantial risk of happening now.
There's also just the whole jury duty thing which I've always found fascinating. Maybe after Covid I'll give it a try. Oh, another problem though for me and my son and probably everyone in my family is we aren't on a jury duty daytime type schedule. We sleep whenever we want to and wake up whenever too. For us jury duty could very well be like someone who works 9 to 5 being forced to one day get up at midnight and then go to a courthouse for 8 hours. There's no consideration for night owls or people who work nights. I probably shouldn't mention that because for us it's privileged problems but that guy who went to prison for 10 days for sleeping in means you can't take it lightly and the consequences of messing up can be way out of proportion to the "crime".
But the questions are bothersome too. I hate being asked what I do for a living since I pretty much don't do anything. I don't tell people how much I make since that's a violation of my security protocols. In the time of social engineering, identity theft, frauds and scams everywhere including jury duty scams, the lack of consideration for privacy of citizens is concerning. But if it's accurate that we don't have to actually answer the questions, that would be something. I wonder how that plays out in real life. You take your form down there and get up in front of the judge and say that you refuse to answer any of these questions. So she can't hold you in contempt of court for that?
Some people also say despite what the summons says you can just toss it. Mail gets lost all the time and unless it's a certified letter that you signed for there's no proof that you ever got it. I wonder if anyone has ever lost when they put that to the test, like got an arrest warrant put out on them as the summons threatens.