Update 3/2/00:
All charges against Siri have been dropped!
I'm going to leave the rest of this page intact as a reminder of the sort of nonsense that some people end up having to put up with from a society that's not as supportive of parents as it ought to be.
Siri Wright is an Idaho mother who's practicing extended breastfeeding with her 28-month-old daughter. Idaho law provides an exemption from jury duty for nursing moms. Apparently the jury commissioner thinks that 28 months is too long to nurse, because she's charged Siri with contempt for failing to show for jury duty and not providing a doctor's note to confirm breastfeeding.
All in all, I'm pretty well appalled by this. The jury commissioner's stance appears to be that a physician's note is required as proof of breastfeeding. But the Idaho statute in question looks to me to clearly say that a condition requiring a physician's certificate is one thing, and breastfeeding is another thing entirely -- and that the jury commissioner can make a determination based on an interview with the prospective juror. Now, maybe I'm reading this wrong because I'm not a lawyer, but it'll be interesting to see whether the jury commissioner can possibly come up with another way to interpret the statute and make it stick.
Just a reminder to activists: under the American legal system it is not cool to write to the judge or his staff in cases like this. There are formal rules governing communication with the court. It's perfectly OK to express your opinion to officials in the executive branch, but not to the judiciary.