Skip to content
HearingTracker
Log in

Jury duty with severe to profound hearing loss

This topic is closed.

109 replies15.1k viewsLast reply

Jump
Link to this topic
Edited

Hi All,
Tomorrow I have jury duty. Not looking forward to it at all. Tried to get an excuse but denied. Anyone been thru this and used hearing loss to get off of jury duty? Anyone serve on a jury where they made special arrangements for the hearing impaired? Tnx

48 people in this conversation30 min readJump to latest

I’ve seen judges excuse jurors for similar reasons. Voice your concerns when asked, be polite about it and I think you have an excellent chance of the judge excusing you. I think the courts are pretty behind on assistive technology from my experience.

Thanks for the replies. Thinking I will take a copy of my recent and see if that might help. I wouldn’t even want me on my own jury, with my lack of hearing…

I’ve asked my audiologist for a letter about not being able to serve and sent it in, thereby getting excused. If I get chosen again I’ll have to ask for another letter.

I was simply excused from the jury pool when I showed the official my hearing aids and expressed my concern over being able to accurately capture 100% of the speech during trial.

It depends on where you live and the age range of the jury pool. When I was at my previous home all I had to do was show them the letter from my audiologist that my hearing loss caused me to have a low word recognition score and I was completely removed from the possibility of serving on a jury. Where I live now the area is mostly retired and the jury pool is mostly retired individuals and there isn’t a possibility of being removed from the jury pool, but the lawyers are good about not accepting the really hard of hearing, but I had one judge lecture me about not knowing sign language, bluntly said I am hard f hearing not deaf.

If they make you sit on a jury be sure to speak up that you can’t hear the questions and answers. Dont suffer in silence.

It all varies by region. Some will excuse you in advance and others, like my own, require you to come in but the judge will send you home if you have any issues - not just .

I have gotten out of jury duty twice due to my hearing. All I had to do was talk to the Court Administrator.

Three times I was called. Three times my audiologist sent in a letter getting me excused. My thinking was the defense would have had an air tight excuse for appeal once he saw my . You probably need to tell the judge you can’t hear. When I spoke to the clerk over the phone the first time I was called she said they could provide headphones, meaning I was talking to a wall. My audiologist said he’s provided letters for others and all but one were excused

Yes they told me they provided headphones, I asked t they were adjustable to my , she asked me what was that. I said it was the prescription for my hearing aid fitting. Then she said we can provide someone to do sign language and I said I am not deaf, just hard of hearing I don’t understand sign language. She acted like I either had to be deaf or had good hearing. I found the court system very uneducated to hearing loss.

You could have your audi write a note on your behalf to take with you to show the jury selectors. No way would anyone quibble with a note from a doc that says, “My patient will DEAF-initely not hear everything said in court! Use him/her at your own peril.”

I’ve gone that route, you betcha! Aids are wonderful but what IF we missed something truly critical?

OK! Well, I just moved to another state … and don’t even have a dear audi here yet much less the local driver’s license. Sure hope I fly under the radar for a while till I can get more settled.

It does seem lame that us with aids can’t even get a streamer hooked up or neck loop or some device to ensure we wouldn’t miss a word tho. Like issuing a driver’s license to someone who’s legally blind cuz you want them paying toll taxes. :neutral_face:

I moved from Texas where due to my hearing loss I was totally off the jury pool list, to Arkansas where as long as you are not confined to a bed you are on the jury pool list. My Audiologist wrote a letter for me and I was told no excuses.

Boy that’s nice. Ohio doesn’t have a list. So I kept getting called and kept sending in a letter

The lawyers can excuse jurors they don’t want. I say repeat anytime I was asked questions in in the selection process

No but if a good defense attorney finds out a jurist is hearing impaired and the verdict went against his client you can be sure he’s going to bring that up during appeal. But to be honest with you if you know you’re hearing impaired and you try to hide it just so you can serve… Let’s just say you’re supposed to be honest. I always said to myself, what if I miss something or misunderstood something. And in Ohio the jury pool comes off the voter registration list. So if you’re new to a state and haven’t re registered I don’t think you would get called

Related discussions