Jury Duty Summons?

[sesamosinsal]

No, but the OP did:

And the OP is clearly aware that the jury duty summons exists. If you're aware that exists and you still qualify as a resident of the state in which the summons was issued, you are legally required to respond to it.

Of course, the OP could just ignore it and pretend that she/he never knew about it. But if you tell a police officer that you didn't know the speed limit, you're still probably going to get a ticket; and if you get a letter from your state's revenue department demanding payment of taxes, you're still legally required to pay them. Ignorance is generally not a good excuse, and it doesn't exempt you from the law.

If you're going to maintain residency in a U.S. state, then your obligations as a resident of that state still apply. It's that simple. People who are going to reside here as a permatourist should make plans beforehand to manage situations like this one. (Kudos to the OP for doing so.)

 

[deeve007]

If you tell the police officer in California that you didn't know the speed limit while driving in Buenos Aires, I doubt anything would happen.

And the mistake the OP made was getting a 90 day extension, which has informed the relevant powers that be that he does know about it. If ignored from the outset nothing would have occured, pretty confident of that. Some things aren't dissimilar from other countries.

But we can agree to disagree if you like.

 

[sesamosinsal]

If you tell the police officer in California that you didn't know the speed limit while driving in Buenos Aires, I doubt anything would happen.

And the mistake the OP made was getting a 90 day extension, which has informed the relevant powers that be that he does know about it. If ignored from the outset nothing would have occured, pretty confident of that. Some things aren't dissimilar from other countries.

But we can agree to disagree if you like.

What? The OP received the jury duty summons from a county in a U.S. state, in which she/he is a resident. This has nothing to do with visa extensions or any laws in Argentina.

Every county is different. In my state, you can ignore the jury duty requests in some counties without consequence. However, in some other counties, not responding to the jury duty summons -- due to ignorance or otherwise -- comes with some pretty stiff fines.

According to this article, "In 2003, Massachusetts fined nearly 48,000 people $2000 each for missing jury duty, under new laws that criminalize repeat offenders. Los Angeles County has fined residents who failed to serve jury duty a total of over $940,000. New York County fined 1,443 jury dodgers in Manhattan $250 each."

We can agree or disagree when you layoff all that beer, tango and sex..

 

[deeve007]

We have the exact same laws in Australia. But if I am overseas, and don't "know" about getting being summoned for jury duty, then that is a valid excuse that would avoid a fine.

Exactly the same with voting, which is compulsory in Australia. Though I make an effort to vote via my embassy.

I would find it surprising to the extreme that if someone was overseas at the time, and said they did not know they had received a jury summons, that they would be fined for it. I'm sure the courts have enough legitimate avoiders to go after rather than those with a valid excuse.