My Story

I was (am) a homeschooling mom.  My twins were 5 years old at the time.  We had recently moved to North Carolina, had no family nearby and all of our friends worked full time and had their kids in day care.  We did not have a baby sitter.  On the rare occasions we went out, we would swap evening childcare with some friends.

My husband worked full time at a local university.  His shift at the time had him working Tuesday through Thursday from 7 am to 7 pm.

I received a summons to appear for jury duty in Durham County, North Carolina.  The day I was to appear was a Monday, which worked out well since my husband is off on Mondays.  I planned to report for jury duty, explain my situation, and expected to be released.

I reported at the assigned time to a large waiting room with approximately 100 other people.  We watched an instructional video about our responsibility as citizens and jurors.  We were separated into a few groups and told to report to several different courtrooms for jury selection. My group had about 30 people in it.  We filed into the courtroom and were told to sit in the audience area.  The judge, prosecutor, defendant and defense attorney were already seated at their tables in the court room.  We had been assigned numbers and the first group of numbers were called and asked to sit in the jury box for questioning.  My number was in the first group called and I was seated as Juror #4.

The judge explained that the case was a statutory rape case, and that the attorneys were going to ask some questions to determine the suitability of the jurors.  A list of names of people associated with the case was read and one juror was dismissed because she was a lab tech who was cited in the prosecution case.

The defense attorney asked if anyone had been personally affected by a similar situation (statutory rape) and some juror raised her hand.  The judge asked the nature of her situation and she started telling a story and started sobbing.  The lawyers conferred with the judge and she was dismissed.

Finally they asked if anyone had any other reason they could not be a juror.  I raised my hand and said that I was the full time caretaker for 5 year old twins.  The judge said that I could not be excused for this situation, and replied that I would have to find family or a babysitter to take care of them.  I replied that I did not have any family in the state, we did not have a babysitter, and had no one to watch my kids.  The judge again stated that he was sorry for the difficulty, but that it was not the court's problem, that I was responsible for finding childcare.  "Jury duty is a burden for everyone." he added.