To get excused from jury duty once you've responded you need to prove that you have a hardship or have bad enough health or have children to take care of etc.
A job cannot legally fire you for missing the job for jury duty and you do get paid a small amount for showing up at jury duty.
But the easiest way to get out of jury duty is to not respond in the first place if the jury duty letter was sent to you regular mail.
If you've gotten a jury duty summons and have not responded then you should do nothing and wait and see if they send you another jury duty summons.
Most times nothing will happen to you if you do miss jury duty if you've never responded to the jury duty summons in the first place.
However if you've responded to the Jury Duty Summons and missed Jury Duty you need to go to the courthouse or contact the court and explain what happened.
You can easily refuse jury duty service but never responding to the Jury Duty Summons in the first place.
Most Jury Duty Summons are sent regular mail and without the Jury Duty Summons being sent certified mail then they cannot prove you got the Jury Duty Summons.
However if you have responded to the Jury Duty summons then you need to have a good excuse to not show up at Jury Duty.
If you've responded to the Jury Duty Summons and then forget to call for Jury Duty then you'll get a order to appear in court and then have to explain to the judge why you didn't call for Jury Duty.
In some cases you may get fined $1,000.00 or even face 30 days in jail.
You will get either get a fine of $1,000.00 or go to jail for at least 30 days if you do miss jury duty after responding to the jury duty summons.
If you respond to the jury duty summons then that shows you got the jury duty summons and then not appearing in court for the jury duty means you have committed contempt of court.
So then you could go to jail or get fined for missing the jury duty.
The best thing to do is not respond so they cannot prove you got the jury duty summons unless it was sent certified or personally handed to you.
The fine for not going to Jury Duty is around $1,000.00
However I've never responded to Jury Duty Summons in over 15 years and never showed up to court for Jury Duty and never had any fines or warrants for my arrest.
But if you do respond to the Jury Duty and then don't show up then you can get fined and possibly 30 days in Jail for contempt of court.
Not showing up for Jury Duty is supposed to result in fines and possible jail time.
However I've been summoned for Jury Duty at least 3 times in the last 15 years and have never responded to those Jury Duty summons.
I've always just destroyed those Jury Duty Summons and never have appeared in court for them nor did I ever try to make an excuse to get out of Jury Duty.
I've never had any warrants for my arrest or have been fined any amount for not showing up for Jury duty.
I've also been to court on unrelated issues and never have been in trouble for not responding to Jury Duty.
The threats of jail time and fines are usually just that and unless the Jury Duty Summons was sent through certified mail and you signed for the Jury Duty Summons or the Jury Duty Summons was personally handed to you then the courts cannot prove you got the Jury Duty Summons in the first place.
So the best thing to do is just ignore the Jury Duty Summons unless you really want to serve on Jury Duty.