How To Get Out Of Jury Duty While Abroad

If you’re a U.S. citizen, you know the purpose of our Sixth Amendment is to guarantee the rights of criminal defendants to receive a speedy and impartial trial.

Jury duty is the civic duty for all Americans to help make the court proceeding happen in a fair and just way. But, if you are living abroad, and you receive an official jury duty summons, it can be rather freaky to consider the notion of returning home just to participate in the jury selection process.

I recently received my jury duty summons while living abroad, and in this post I’ll share with you the steps I took to quickly and easily resolve this issue that didn’t cost me anything but about 10 minutes of my time in order to receive a disqualification exemption.

Watch this video to view the step, or keep reading below to get the info!

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Begin by going to your state’s court website, which should be printed on the jury summons’ notice.

Side note: If you’re trying to access the state site and it appears to not load or not exist, try loading the webpage with a VPN turned on, and then it should work. By the way, the best free VPN I’ve found so far is ProTon VPN, and if you have a VPN you really like, please mention it in the comments below.

Next, type in your information to log in.

Then, you’ll request a disqualification, which in order for it to be reviewed, you’ll have to prove your residence abroad with a document that includes both your name and address abroad. You might find these on an employer pay stub, bank document, or ID card, for example.

Take and upload a picture of this documentation.

Lastly, submit the questionnaire and wait a couple of days.

All in all, finding out that you have been summoned to jury duty while you are abroad can just plain not at all be the news that you want to receive. But it’s important to knock it out and take care of it quickly. I hope this post helps you do just that.

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