Jury Management: Promising Innovations

1. Jury Management:Promising Innovations National Association for Court Management July 13, 2006

2. We Are: • Paula Hannaford-Agor • Director, Center for Jury Studies • National Center for State Courts • Tom Munsterman • director, Center for Jury Studies • Yes I am retiring • I just don’t know when National Center for State Courts

3. When Last We MetIn Dallas in 2004(Exactly two years ago) • A big jury year and it isn't over • Technological applications abound • An Interesting Email Approach • Travis County, Texas • New ABA Efforts in Juries • The Jury Patriotism Act • As enacted in 8 states • National Program to Increase Citizen Participation in Jury Service National Center for State Courts

4. When Last We MetIn San Francisco in 2005 • A Panel to Discuss a National Association of Jury Managers • Our and your thoughts • Other communications means • NCSC JuryManagersList List-Serv National Center for State Courts

5. ABA Principles For Juries and Jury TrialsAugust 2005 • Principle 2: Citizens have the right to participate in jury service and their service should be facilitated • Principle 3: Juries should have 12 members • Principle 4: Jury decisions should be unanimous National Center for State Courts

6. More Principles • Principle 5B: Courts should collect and analyze information • Principle 7: Courts should protect juror privacy • Continued distinction between qualification, jury administration, and voir dire information • Methods of voir dire – individual or written voir dire on sensitive matters • Retention policies • No surveillance of prospective jurors National Center for State Courts

7. Principle 10 Courts should use open, fair and flexible procedures to select a representative pool of prospective jurors • 10 B: Courts should use random selection procedures throughout the juror selection process • 10 B 1: Any selection procedure may be used--that provides each eligible and available person with an equal probability of selection, except when a court orders an adjustment for underrepresented populations. National Center for State Courts

8. Technology • Stratified Selection based on • Census • Response • Yield • FTA • Undeliverable • When applied? • Technology Abounds • Web used for all jury matters • Other things: blogs, instant access, ebay National Center for State Courts

9. Arizona’s Lengthy Trial Fund • Jury Patriotism Act • Reimburses jurors serving on lengthy trials for lost income up to $100 per day (days 4-10 of trial) and up to $300 per day (days 11+) • Unemployed up to $40 a day • Funded by $15 civil filing fee beginning January 1, 2004 • Compensation became available to jurors on July 1, 2004 • See Munsterman & Silverman, “Arizona Jury Reform” Vol. 45, No. 1 Judges’ Journal. 18 (Winter 2006) National Center for State Courts

10. The experience after 1 year • $613,571 collected in 2004 • $130,000 disbursed from July 2004 to June 2005 • 172 jurors serving on 40 lengthy trials (2% of trials) • 58% expenditures for criminal trials • Average reimbursement $750 • Courts recovered $3,126 in administrative costs (not enough) • 1 out of 3 jurors serving on lengthy trials requested compensation • Forms available on Arizona Judiciary website • Possible legislative revisions: • Reduce amount of civil filing fee • Reduce number of days of service for eligibility • Remove $100 cap on fee for days 4 through 10 National Center for State Courts

11. State-of-the-StatesLocal Court Survey • 1,186 jurisdictions have responded • Thank you, thanks you, thank you • Some have not-You know who you are! • Representing 1,288 individual counties and over 2/3rds of the U.S. population • Focus on local jury operations and jury improvement efforts • Two other Components: • Statewide survey documents legal infrastructure in which local courts operate • Practitioner survey focuses on individual trials National Center for State Courts

12. What’s happening in jury improvement efforts? • Over half of all jurisdictions report some type of jury improvement effort in the past 5 years • Focus of improvement efforts • Upgrade technology (41%) • Decrease non-response rates (39%) • Improve jury yield, improve facilities (30%) • Improve utilization rates (27%) • Improve representation, improve public outreach (22%) • Improve jury instructions (20%) • Improve juror comprehension (15%) National Center for State Courts

13. Recent changes to state jury fees in • Texas • California • Michigan National Center for State Courts

14. Term of Service • Our best estimate: • 23% of state courts operate under “one day/one trial” term of service • encompasses 56% of U.S. population • 2/3rds of state courts have terms of service of one month or less • 50% of courts with terms of service longer than one day have 12 or fewer jury trials annually • Effectively one day/one trial systems (or could be with little or no effort) National Center for State Courts

15. Non-Response Rates* n=442 n=346 n=181 n=65 *one-step courts only National Center for State Courts

16. Effect of Follow-Up • 79% of state courts reported follow-up efforts • Strong correlation between extent of follow-up and non-response rates • Single follow-up letter or second summons appears to be most effective (50% of courts) • Documented success in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Eau Claire, Wisc. National Center for State Courts

17. A Better Measure of Juror Use Available at http://www.courtools.org National Center for State Courts

18. A Better Measure of Juror Use(From CourTools) • What percent of the citizens reporting become a juror each day? • 100 report to the pool • 26 are sworn • That’s 26% • Should be done over many days and weeks • Combines effects of: • Call-in efficiency • Calendaring, pleas, settlements • Panel size National Center for State Courts

19. New Directions from the Bench • US v. Darryl Green, 389 F. Supp. 29 (D. Mass. 2005) • Fair cross section challenge based on effects of non-response and undeliverable rates • Significant expansion of “systematic exclusion” definition • Overturned by 1st Circuit Court of Appeals on procedural grounds National Center for State Courts

20. And More New Directions • Jury Service Resource Center v. De Muñiz, S52571 (Ore. filed April 27, 2006) • Constitutional challenge to the confidentiality of source list, master jury list, and jury term list records on First Amendment grounds • Distinguishes voir dire (presumptively open to the public under First Amendment) from the administrative jury process National Center for State Courts

21. Pending Applications • Best Practices for Improving the Response to Jury Summonses • Follow-up programs • Source list compilation and management • Jury fees • Urban Courts Workshop • Plain-English Jury Instruction Workshop • Community-Supported Jury Service National Center for State Courts

22. New and Noteworthy • New NCSC Publications • Jury Trial Innovations (2d ed.) • Communicating with Juries: How to Draft Understandable Jury Instructions • Compendium publication of findings from the State-of-the-States Survey • Website with state-by-state comparisons • Datasets will be available for research purposes Upcoming Events • ICM Jury Management, October 25-27, 2006 (Orlando, Florida) • ABA Jury Symposium, October 26-27, 2006 (Houston, Texas) • Sponsored by ABA Commission on the American Jury Project National Center for State Courts

23. What You Might Do • Subscribe to Jur-E Bulletin • Free, weekly and an open communication • www.ncsconline.org • Select “newsletters” • Subscribe to JuryManagersList List-Serv • Get Publications from NCSC • Get Principles from www.abanet.org • Get a copy of this presentation from NACM website National Center for State Courts

24. National Center for State Courts