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Preparing for Jury Duty

Knowing about jury nullification is just one step in preparing to serve as a fully informed juror. Once you know about jury nullification, judges and prosecutors will be looking to keep you off a jury. They do this through a variety of means including:

  • assessing your appearance and demeanor to see if you seem independent-minded,
  • indirectly getting you to spill your guts by asking open-ended questions,
  • directly inquiring about your knowledge of jury nullification or opinions on the laws involved in the case,
  • coercing you to take an oath that suggests you are required to follow the judges directions,
  • and more!

We are assembling a stockpile of resources for you to use when you get that jury summons to increase your chances of successfully serving as a fully informed juror. Please check back whenever you get a jury summons as we will be adding and updating this information periodically.

Training for General Juror Rights Education Outreach at Courthouses

FIJA does not provide legal advice and has no attorneys on staff. If you have questions about or need legal advice regarding juror rights educational activities, please consult an attorney. The material and comments here are our observations from years of juror rights outreach at courthouses and are provided for informational purposes only.

Are you interested in conducting a juror rights educational campaign at or near a courthouse? Great! Thank you for your interest in creating more fully informed jurors in your community. 

While it is uncommon, on occasion people do run into some issues when engaging in this educational outreach at or near courthouses. Naturally, the government is highly invested in making sure that jurors have no idea that they are not legally or morally bound to follow the judge's instructions or be complicit in enforcing unjust laws. When such situations arise, most often courthouse employees will try to intimidate juror rights educators into leaving. Far more rarely, but still from time to time, they will even try to entrap juror rights educators into activities they can then prosecute as so-called "jury tampering".

PLEASE DO NOT FALL FOR THESE TACTICS!

Before you go out to a courthouse, we invite you to review the following information which contains our observations about how juror rights educators can protect themselves from false jury tampering accusations or other related issues.

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