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Jury FAQs

We get juror information at the start of each year from a combination of voter registration and Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) records. If you were a registered voter in Linn County as of November of last year, or if your driver’s license or state ID has a Linn County address, you may be summoned for jury duty. Even if you moved out of Linn County 9 months ago you may receive a summons for jury duty for Linn. If you are no longer a Linn County resident when you receive your summons, please respond to your summons and include your current address and you will be excused from jury duty. If you don’t update the address on your driver’s license and your voter registration you may continue to receive summons from Linn County long after you have moved away.

Our current Jury computer system is unable to distinguish that North Albany is not in Linn County. We know that North Albany is actually in Benton County, so North Albany residents should respond to a Linn County jury duty summons and let us know that you were summoned in error. Even if you no longer live in the state of Oregon, you shouldn’t ignore your summons. Just contact us and we will excuse you once we have your current physical address.

Jurors who travel to the courthouse using public transit (only buses in Linn County) should request compensation on the Juror Certification form that is filled out during jury orientation. Be sure that you request the amount paid both to get to the courthouse and to get back home again.

Avoid parking in areas where there are any time limits (unless you have a handicapped placard displayed in your window). There are several locations near the courthouse that allow all day parking. The west, south, and east sides of the courthouse have all day parking available on-street. Jurors are also welcome to park in the parking lot across from the front of the courthouse that is labeled “County Business”. You can also park in areas with signs that say “All Day Customer/Employee Parking”. If you park in one of those spots you should display the “JUROR” parking slip (that is included with your term letter) on the dash of your vehicle. Courthouse parking map

Respond as soon as you can (even if you are 6 months late!). Responding late is much better than not responding at all. We know that sometimes people move and it takes a while to get forwarded mail or that sometimes a summons might slide under your car seat and be lost for a few weeks. We will always work with you to find a time you can serve or assist with your request to defer or excuse you from jury duty, but you have to contact us before we can help.

Phone: 541.967.3828
FAX: 541.928.2711
Email: linn.jury.manager@ojd.state.or.us

Any juror who is scheduled to serve and attends is paid $10 per day for each of the first 2 days of service and $25 for each day of service after that. Jurors are also paid $.20 per mile they travel (round trip) between home and the courthouse. Anyone who uses public transit to attend jury duty will also be compensated for the amount you pay to come to the courthouse and return home. Jurors are compensated for travel every day they are required to serve.

The amount you are paid is based on the information you provide on the Juror Certification form that is completed during jury orientation. If a question is marked incorrectly it could result in an incorrect check. There might also be a data entry error that caused you to receive the wrong amount. If you feel that your check is for the wrong amount, or if the check is long overdue, please call the Jury Manager right away and we will get to the bottom of the mystery.

It is important that you always respond to a jury duty summons. Even if you feel you have received the summons in error you need to respond to the summons or contact the Jury Manager. As long as there is an outstanding juror summons with your name on it you are responsible for contacting the court. Just because you respond does not mean you will have to serve. You can request to be rescheduled or excused from jury duty, but you have to respond to the summons. It’s easy to respond online (using the Jury Summons Response Form) or via US mail (the postage is paid for you). You can’t respond to your summons over the phone.

Wi-fi service is available in the Jury Assembly Room and in most parts of the courthouse via our free wi-fi network. You are not allowed to use wireless devices in the courtroom or jury deliberation rooms, but you are welcome to use your devices outside the courtroom while on breaks or lunch and before your jury service begins.

You aren’t required to serve on a jury in Oregon more than once every 2 years. If you have served on jury duty in the last 2 years in any court in Oregon (municipal, circuit, or federal court) you can be excused from jury duty upon request. Just respond to your summons with the required information. These different courts don’t have a way to communicate jury duty information, so we will not automatically know if you have served in the last 2 years.

Some people are summoned multiple times because their DMV and voter registration information is not the same (perhaps you use a hyphen in your name on your driver’s license, but not on your voter registration) then our computer system might think you are 2 different people and accidentally summon you again before your 2 years is up.

Although (in most instances) you aren’t required to serve on a jury more than once every 2 years, some people feel that they get summoned a lot more than friends or neighbors. That is possible. Because of the number of people who fail to respond to their summons to jury duty we may have to summon as much as 20% of the adult population of Linn County every year! The best way to ensure that you are not called to jury duty every few years is to encourage your friends and neighbors in Linn County to respond to their jury summons as soon as they receive it. That not only ensures that they are complying with the law but will ultimately mean that we can summon fewer people every year. That would be great for everyone!

There definitely is! You can fax any requested paperwork to 541.928.2711. If you are asked to provide documentation from a third party (such as your doctor or your employer), they can fax that documentation directly to the Jury Manager. That should save a trip to your doctor’s (or boss’) office.

Grand jurors only need to report to the Orientation session listed on their summons. Anyone selected to serve on the grand jury will receive additional scheduling information after Orientation is complete.

If you receive a “Special Summons” you will receive a specific date and time to appear for orientation.

Petit jurors may be scheduled on any of the days during their 2 weeks of service. Those jurors must check the jury schedule during those 2 weeks. The schedule for the upcoming week is available after 4:30 PM on the Friday before and is available all weekend by calling the Jury Line 541.967.3828 or checking our Jury Schedule page. The daily jury schedule is available Monday - Thursday after 4:30 PM.

The recorded schedule on the Jury Line will list a range of juror numbers (such as “jurors 350 – 500”), so listen for a group of numbers that includes your juror number. The online jury schedule will list each individual juror number that has been called.

Check the jury schedule the weekend before the first week of your 2 week term for your juror number. If your number is not listed for the upcoming week, check it again the next weekend. If your juror number is not called for either week of your 2 week term, then you are finished with jury duty and don’t need to check the jury schedule any longer.

If your juror number is listed on the schedule for the upcoming week, take note of which day you need to report. It is very important that you check the jury schedule again the night before your service. Any time after 4:30 PM you can check the jury schedule to confirm that you are still required to come in. The schedule will also tell you what time and where you need to report on your scheduled day. Trials are sometimes canceled the day before they are supposed to start. We would hate to see you report to the courthouse on a day when you aren’t needed!

If you are scheduled to report during the first week of your 2 week term, please check the jury schedule again the next weekend. We try very hard to not ask anyone to come in twice, but sometimes the court’s schedule will cause us to bring you in a second time. It is rare, but you should always check both weekends before your scheduled weeks of service to ensure you don’t miss your scheduled.

If something unexpectedly changes and you find that you are no longer able to serve on jury duty, please contact the Jury Manager as soon as possible. Whenever possible we will reassign you to another 2 week term, or another 2 month period, if needed. You can also request to be excused from duty based on the change in your circumstances. The Jury Manager will review those types of excusals on a case-by-case basis. You may be asked to supply additional documentation to support your request.

Your Jury Summons will list the dates you may be asked to serve. Grand jurors are assigned to a 2 month term of service while petit jurors are assigned to a 2 week period. Many petit jurors are only required to serve 1 day out of those 2 weeks. Occasionally there is a very heavy trial calendar and some jurors may be asked to report more than once during their 2 weeks of service, but that is not typical. Some trials last more than one day and if you are on the jury for such a trial you would have to serve until the trial concludes. We work very hard to schedule jurors so that nobody has to serve on more than one trial, but occasionally jurors may be asked to serve on a second trial.

We understand that not everyone can serve every day of a 2 week period. There are dentist appointments, sales conferences, vacations, and other obligations. If there are particular days during your 2 week service period when you can’t serve it is very important that you list those days when you complete your Juror Response form. Please check your calendar carefully and list every date when you have a conflict.

Sometimes conflicts come up at the last minute. It is important to contact the Jury Manager before the schedule is posted for that week whenever possible. You need to notify the Jury Manager as soon as possible if something comes up that would conflict with the 2 week term you were assigned to. Requests for time off will be granted for such emergencies whenever possible, but the sooner you tell us the easier it will be to adjust your schedule. You should NOT wait until you see which day you are scheduled before requesting days off. We may simply be unable to grant last minute time off requests no matter how good your reason.

A small group of jurors are randomly selected every 2 months to be potential grand jurors. Grand jurors meet several times a month and hear a variety of cases. If you are called for grand jury duty you will be required to attend an orientation session on the first Wednesday of the 2 month period. There will be two different grand juries selected (one meets every other Wednesday, the other group meets every Thursdays) with a total of 24 jurors.

If you go to grand jury orientation but you aren’t selected to serve, your jury duty is considered complete. Grand jurors don’t have to check the jury schedule. At the end of the grand jury orientation all jurors will know if/when they have to return to the courthouse, but most people called for grand jury duty will not be required to do anything more than attend the one-time orientation. If you are called for grand jury duty but are unable to attend the scheduled orientation session you will be rescheduled (possibly to another grand jury orientation or to a petit jury – see below).

Those not called for grand jury serve on what are called “petit juries”. These are the types of juries you generally see on television and in movies. Petit juries listen to the evidence in a single case and render a verdict. Once that single case is decided, petit jurors are usually done with their service. Most petit jurors only have to come to the courthouse once during their 2 weeks of jury duty.

If you are on an out-of-town work assignment, traveling, or have other plans that would make it impossible to serve any of the days during your term, your service can be deferred to a different time once. Requests for a second deferral will be considered based upon your unique personal circumstances, but we discourage deferring service more than once. Most second requests are denied.

In the event that you don’t show up on the day you are scheduled, you need to contact the Jury Manager as soon as possible to be rescheduled. Remember that failure to respond to your summons promptly and truthfully or failure to appear for jury duty can result in contempt of court charges as provided in ORS 10.245(3), (4), and (6).

Don’t worry! The Jury Manager can resend paperwork to you or give you any information you might need. Just email linn.jury.manager@ojd.state.or.us.

Any jurors 70 years of age or older will be excused from jury duty at their request. Women who are currently breastfeeding will also be excused upon request. If there are other circumstances in your life that would make serving on jury duty an undue hardship, you may request to be excused from jury duty. Any request to be excused from service should be listed on your Juror Response form.

If you request to be excused for reasons other than being 70+ years old or are currently breastfeeding, you may be asked to provide additional documentation before a decision can be made to excuse. For example, if you request to be excused because serving would cause a financial hardship, you may be asked to provide a letter from your employer listing your work schedule and their policy about paying employees who serve on jury duty. Another example would be if you request to be excused for medical reasons, you may be asked to provide a letter from your doctor. We will consider all requests to be excused and will respond to the request as quickly as possible.

If you are “deferred” from jury duty that means that your jury service has been rescheduled to another time period. For example, if you are a student who gets a summons to serve during your current semester, you could request to be deferred until the summer when you are out of school.

If you are “excused” from jury duty it means that you will not be required to serve at all. Being excused from jury duty once does not automatically excuse you from future service. You might be excused because of an upcoming major surgery, but 2 years later you may be summoned again when you are healthy and able to serve. You should never assume that you have been excused from jury duty until you receive an email, letter, or postcard stating that you have been excused or have spoken to the Jury Manager to confirm.

Anyone with a disability who needs accommodation to participate in jury service should advise the Jury Manager of the disability and type of accommodation needed at least one week before your service. There are several reserved handicapped parking spaces near the courthouse for those jurors who have the appropriate placard/permit. An elevator is available for any jurors with mobility concerns. Jurors with hearing or speech impairment may request an assistive communication device while on jury duty. Other services may be available. Please check with the Jury Manager.

We understand that unexpected things can happen without advanced notice. If something happens that prevents you from serving on a day when you were called to the courthouse, contact the Jury Manager as soon as possible. Requests for last minute problems are approved whenever possible and usually just mean rescheduling to a different day but you should have alternative plans so that you can report for duty if at all possible. Contact the Jury Manager as soon as possible to explain your situation. That way we will know not to expect you during juror orientation. Requests made with less than 24 hours notice are more difficult to grant.