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Jury Duty?

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Thank you for mentioning HLAA. Looks like a very beneficial organization. I just joined by making a donation.

In reply to @user699

Your experience echoes mine (I’m in Placer County CA, FYI).
I was told they would arrange for captioning equipment and rescheduled me 6-months later.
When I turned up to serve, someone had dropped the ball and captioning wasn’t available (their one captioning system was at a different court that day).
They were very apologetic and credited me for having served (which I think means I won’t be called for another year or two).
Please let us know how it went!

@HOHKate said:

I was told they would arrange for captioning equipment and rescheduled me 6-months later.
When I turned up to serve, someone had dropped the ball and captioning wasn’t available (their one captioning system was at a different court that day).

When I informed my local jury summons office of my need for captioning I thought that I would never be contacted again. But lo and behold, they told me to show up in a few months and there would be a captioner there. When I arrived I was introduced to my assigned helper, who turned out to be a regular court reporter. This system greatly cuts down the costs for the court system. I wish I could comment on how well this works, but I’ve been back two times now and still have not been selected for a jury pool.

I was excused from jury duty (forever) because of my hearing. I sent a message in reply to the summons and was easily excused. They don’t want people on the jury who have bad hearing. Older age can make a difference, too.

In reply to @kev716

Thanks much for sharing your very positive experiences! I hope I can report back similarly when/if I have an opportunity to do my civic duty.

If you have a hearing disability and are summoned for jury duty, you can contact the court as soon as possible to request accommodations such as: Assistive listening devices, Sign language interpreters, Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART), and Real-time captioning.

I did jury duty a lot in NJ until about 15 years ago, I always had trouble hearing in the court room. When they sent the next jury duty card. I sent back the card saying that I was deaf in one ear and that I did not have a problem serving jury duty as long as they sat me on the right hand side of the judge.

They sent back saying I was exempt from future jury duty and they haven’t called me to serve since.

In reply to @HOHKate

Captioning is good but it doesn’t carry the nuance, inflection and emotions or hearing the actual speech.

Similarly, when I don’t understand my wife (which is frequent) she raises her voice but it becomes and angry voice. She cannot increase the volume and projection without sounding angry. :frowning:

Medical Note to excuse You.If they dont accept it then start and stop the Trial every 5 Minutes to have them Repeat what they said.I use Narcotice for Pain and am Banned from Jury Duty,get a Note.

I am sure I would have to stop and ask for clarification frequently. I have to do that in the civilian world…

In reply to @user699

Good luck finding that the ‘accommodations’ work and help! Mostly, these things are promised, but don’t function properly–just try getting a gadget that WORKS at a movie theater.

Yeah, movies have been a total bust for me too. Can’t hear and they’re (for me) too expensive. I’m streaming any movies I see nowadays.
But I’m a fan of captions, even generated ones like those on my phone. I use those a lot.

I recently got selected to be on a Jury. The courtroom I was in provided amplified headphones for those who couldn’t hear well. Not to say they still wouldn’t be loud enough for someone with a severe hearing deficit but it made getting an exemption or being excused more difficult due to hearing issues.

I just had my Audiologist write me an excuse for Jury Duty (in Calif), and it was accepted. The Jury Commission only requirement was that it is on Official Letterhead with name, title, contact info. Hope that helps!

I knew I would have trouble hearing in the court room when I received a summons for Jury duty last month. I contacted my audiologist and she had a form letter that I was able to email to the government office. They took me off the roll for any future requests as well!

I live in a state that requires a letter from a doctor. My audi’s original letter didn’t cut it. (The doctor was happy to mostly copy what the audi had said.) So that’s the first thing to check.

My take: I wouldn’t want me to be on my own jury! Even tho’ I am highly functioning with , I sometimes mishear. And in a jury situation, you can’t use the social cues that you can use in conversations to doublecheck.

Before my doctor’s letter was accepted (I’m now dismissed forever), I started to keep notes on my mishearings in daily life – in case I had to talk to a judge. It was eye-opening, because you don’t realize how common they are. But everytime something was corrected – through closed caption, context, or vocal corrections – I jotted it down over the course of a week. Have to say, some of them were pretty amusing. But not if someone’s life path was in jeopardy.

Very good info. I may start keeping a log. I am still waiting on the letter from the .

Thank you, Jeff

About a year ago, I reported for jury duty here in Portland Oregon, after submitting the form requesting live transcription due to my hearing loss.

At the morning gathering of potential jurors, I was asked to meet with someone who was working there specifically to provide support for people with disabilities. She provided me with an iPad that displyed live transcription of what was being said to the jurors, and she kept checking with me to make sure I had what I needed and that it was working. Ultimately, my name was not called for a trial, and I was dismissed with a large group of people who also were not chosen.

I was highly impressed by the support and kindness I experienced here!

In reply to @user699

@user699 said:

I’m thrilled, actually. It’s so cool to have the system be responsive to my needs! We shouldn’t be denied the rights of citizenship because of a disability. Really glad my local government figured that out!

Absolutely! So appreciate your efforts!

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