Dear Fellow Citizen:

As the enclosed summons indicates, you have been selected from the voter rolls, according to law, for jury duty on the date, time and place indicated. Your reaction may first be to attempt to avoid this personal inconvenience, but jury service is an important civic duty upon which our court system depends. It is important to have a true cross section of our county represented and to have a full jury panel for the cases to be heard during your service. This is your court system and the quality of justice will only be as good as the composite intelligence and wisdom of the jurors who serve.

Enclosed please find a competent juror form that must be filled out by you and immediately returned to the Circuit Clerk in the enclosed addressed envelope. This information is all that you will be required to give and is for your convenience in impaneling the jury.

We do recognize that occasionally circumstances exist when persons cannot serve and should not be required to serve. Section 13-5-23 and 13-5-25 of the Mississippi Code cover this subject. So that you may see the written law, enclosed are copies of these two sections. The Court can only excuse you for one of these specific statutory reasons. Whether presented by your doctor's certificate, affidavit, in person, or in open Court, your excuse must meet these statutory guidelines. All written excuses must be presented five days before the court date to the Circuit Clerk. You are subject to penalty of perjury for any wrongful information given therein. A doctor's certificate may also be returned in the enclosed envelope.

We will do everything we can to make your jury service as convenient as possible. Most who serve are glad they were called; that by learning about their court system they have more pride and confidence in it. Also, at the end of your service you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you did your part to bring justice among your fellow citizens. We look forward to working with you toward that end. 

Gratefully Yours,
PRENTISS G. HARRELL

EXEMPTIONS

THE MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972
ANNOTAED AND AMENDED

§ 13-5-23. Exemptions; length of service of tales and grand jurors.

All qualified persons shall be liable to serve as jurors, unless excused by the court for one (1) of the following causes:

(a) When the juror is ill, or when on account of serious illness in the juror's family, the presence of the juror is required at home.

(b) When the juror's attendance would cause a serious financial loss to the juror or the juror's business, or

(c) When the juror is under an emergency, fairly equivalent to those mentioned in the foregoing clauses (a) and (b).

An excuse of illness must be made either under the oath of the juror in open court or by certificate of a competent physician, made of the physician's own knowledge and not by hearsay. The test of an excuse under clause (b) shall be whether, if the juror were incapacitated by illness or otherwise for a week, some other person would be available or could reasonably be available or could reasonably be procured to carry on the business for the week, and the test of an excuse under clause (c) shall be such as to the fair equivalent, under the circumstances of that prescribed under clause (b). In the cases under clauses (b) and (c) the excuse must be made by the juror, in open court, under oath.

It shall be unlawful for any employer or the other person to persuade or attempt to persuade any juror to avoid jury service, or to intimidate or to threaten any juror in that respect. So to do shall be deemed an interference with the administration of justice and a contempt of court and punishable as such.

§ 13-5-25. Who is exempt as a personal privilege.

Every citizen over sixty-five (65) years of age, and everyone who has served on the regular panel as a juror in the actual trial of one or more litigated cases within two (2) years, shall be exempt from service if he claims the privilege; the latter class shall serve as talesmen, and on special venire, and on the regular panel, if there be a deficiency of jurors. No qualified juror shall be excluded because of any such reasons, but the same shall be a personal privilege to be claimed by any person selected for jury duty.

Provided, however, that no person who has served on the regular panel as a juror in the actual trial of one or more litigated cases in one (1) court may claim the exemption in any other court where he may be called to serve.

NOTE:

If you intend to offer an excuse for one of the above listed reasons, you may call our office for further instructions.