The summons is the sort of envelope that makes the condition worse before you have opened it. Whether you can be excused is not a matter of a clerk's mood. It is a rule, and the rule has a sentence written for you.
The short answer: sometimes, and the rule names the ground. Under California Rules of Court, rule 2.1008, a court may excuse a prospective juror for undue hardship where "the prospective juror has a physical or mental disability or impairment, not affecting that person's competence to act as a juror, that would expose the potential juror to undue risk of mental or physical harm."¹ The court may ask for verification — "unless the person is aged 70 years or older, the prospective juror may be required to furnish verification or a method of verification of the disability or impairment, its probable duration, and the particular reasons for the person's inability to serve as a juror."¹ A request must set out the facts of the hardship and say why deferring service would not avoid it, and a granted request is put in writing or on the record; the rule's stated preference is deferral rather than excuse "for a temporary or marginal hardship."¹ In practice, that means a letter from your clinician that speaks to the impairment, how long it is likely to last and why it prevents service — not merely to a diagnosis — and a decision by the jury commissioner or judge, not a form you tick.
The ground, word by word
Three parts of the sentence do work.¹
- "A physical or mental disability or impairment." Anxiety disorders, depression, PTSD and the rest are impairments in the ordinary sense; the rule does not list conditions.
- "Not affecting that person's competence to act as a juror." This is the ground for a person who could serve, capably, but at a cost. It is not an argument that you are unfit to judge; it is an argument that judging would harm you.
- "Undue risk of mental or physical harm." The question the court asks is about consequence: what serving — days in a courtroom, the content of the case, the loss of a treatment schedule — would do to the condition. A diagnosis alone does not answer it. A clinician's account of what a two-week trial would likely cause does.
What the court can ask for
Verification, or "a method of verification," of three things: "the disability or impairment, its probable duration, and the particular reasons for the person's inability to serve as a juror."¹ A note from a treating clinician is the usual form. The useful note answers those three: the clinician's licence, that you are under treatment for an impairment, how long it is expected to last, and why it would expose you to undue risk of harm if you served — panic attacks in confined settings, a current episode, a treatment schedule that cannot be moved. The rule does not require a diagnosis by name, and a clinician can write to its three elements without one; whether a particular court accepts that is the court's call. Is therapy confidential? →
Every request granted for undue hardship "must be put in writing by the prospective juror, reduced to writing, or placed on the court's record," and the juror must support it with the facts of the hardship and a statement of why deferral would not avoid it.¹ Your written request is the document; the clinician's note is attached to it.
Deferral first
"Deferring jury service is preferred to excusing a prospective juror for a temporary or marginal hardship."¹ If the problem is an acute episode, a medication change, or a month of intensive treatment, the court will lean toward a new date rather than an excuse, and asking for one yourself tends to be received better than asking to be let off altogether.
Automatic grounds that may also apply
Separately from hardship, a person who "has served on a grand or trial jury or was summoned and appeared for jury service in any state or federal court during the previous 12 months must be excused from service on request."¹ The other hardship grounds in the same rule — no reasonably available transportation, excessive distance, extreme financial burden, risk to property, public-safety work, and a personal obligation to care for a sick, aged or infirm dependent or a child with no practical substitute — stand on their own and can be combined with the health ground.¹
What not to do
Do not ignore the summons; that is a separate problem the rule does not solve. Do not write "I have anxiety" and nothing else; it states a condition, not a risk. And do not overstate: the rule assumes competence, and a request that argues you cannot think straight invites a different and worse conversation.
Q&A
Q: Is a note from my therapist enough, or does it have to be a doctor? A: The rule says "verification or a method of verification of the disability or impairment," without naming a profession.¹ A licensed therapist's note is verification; courts vary in what they accept, so if you have both a psychiatrist and a therapist, the psychiatrist's letterhead removes an argument.
Q: Do I have to say what my diagnosis is? A: The rule lets the court require verification of the impairment, its probable duration and the reasons you cannot serve; it does not name a diagnosis as one of them. Ask your clinician to write to those three, and expect that some courts will want more.¹
Q: Can they still make me come in? A: A court may require you to appear and make the request in person or in writing; the excuse is granted by the court, not claimed by the juror.¹
Q: I was excused last time. Does it carry over? A: No. Each summons is its own request, though a prior grant on the same ground is worth mentioning.
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Sources
- California Rules of Court, rule 2.1008 — the undue-hardship ground for "a physical or mental disability or impairment, not affecting that person's competence to act as a juror, that would expose the potential juror to undue risk of mental or physical harm"; the verification provision — "the disability or impairment, its probable duration, and the particular reasons for the person's inability to serve as a juror" — and the age-70 exception; the requirement that granted requests be in writing or on the record and be supported by facts and a statement on why deferral would not avoid the hardship; "Deferring jury service is preferred to excusing a prospective juror for a temporary or marginal hardship"; the twelve-month prior-service excuse in subdivision (e); and the other hardship grounds in subdivision (d) — courts.ca.gov.
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