4-year-old Connecticut girl gets summoned for jury duty by mistake

David Matthews, New York Daily News on Feb 5, 2026

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A 4-year-old Connecticut girl was summoned for jury duty this week, according to her parents.

Darien residents Dr. Omar and Sadia Ibrahimi assumed the notice that arrived in their mail was meant for one of them, but were surprised to see it addressed to their daughter Zara, the youngest of their three kids.

“I actually breathed a sigh of relief when I saw it wasn’t my name on it,” Dr. Ibrahimi, a dermatologist, told ABC 7 New York. “It took me a second (then) I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, why is my daughter’s name on this jury summons?'”

The little girl was bewildered when her parents told her what had happened, but said she didn’t want to get into trouble by not showing up.

“She was like, ‘I don’t want to go to jail,’” Sadia Ibrahimi told CT Insider.

The Connecticut Judicial Branch said the girl’s name came up from a list provided by the state’s Department of Revenue Services. The agency is one of four — voter, motor vehicle and labor records are the others — from which the state pulls jurors, but is the only one that doesn’t include date of birth information.

Dr. Ibrahimi reached out to the Judicial Branch online and got his daughter off the hook.

“There was a free text box, so I put in, ‘I haven’t even completed preschool yet, excuse me,'” Ibrahimi told ABC 7 with a laugh.

Roughly 550,000 Connecticut residents are called for jury duty each year, according to jury administrator Donna MarcAurele. It’s unclear how many children are summoned by mistake, though it “does happen every once in a great while,” she said.