Jury court now in session
Think twice before shrinking from jury duty, Travis County warns.

By Asher Price
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, September 14, 2007

Failing to show up for jury duty could cost Travis County residents.

The county announced Thursday that it has established a jury court for residents who repeatedly shirk their civic duty. Judges can fine an individual up to $500 and reassign him or her to a jury trial.

Residents who fail to show up for a trial assignment and then shrug off a notice from the district clerk's office about reassignment could be summoned to the jury court.

The solution is a good one for encouraging people to serve as jurors, said Craig Enoch, an Austin lawyer and former state Supreme Court justice.

"If the courts are not paying attention, juries could be skewed in favor of people who are retired, or students not in school, or people without gainful employment, and as a result you could end up without a jury of your peers," Enoch said.

The problem is a small one, according to the district clerk's office: Less than one percent of people assigned to a trial shirk enough notices to end up in the jury court. In a three-month pilot program for the jury court this spring, only three people ended up in the court.

Travis County sends out about 14,000 summonses a month for duty in county and City of Austin trials, according to Michelle Brinkman, the chief deputy in the district clerk's office. Recipients may claim exemptions from service because of prior service on a jury in the past two years; because they are 70 or older; because of full-time enrollment in high school or college; because of a current medical condition that precludes service and that is verified by a health care provider; or because they must care for a child or another person unable to care for himself.

Adjusted for the exemptions, postponements, excusals for economic hardship and undeliverable summonses, just under 40 percent of those 14,000 summonses typically find their way into the hands of eligible jurors. Statistics are similar for Williamson and Hays counties, according to Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse of Central Texas.

A poll commissioned by Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse earlier this summer found that a majority of Texans supported stiffer penalties for jury no-shows, including suspension of a driver's license.

In keeping with state law, jurors are paid $40 a day. The jury court is based on an El Paso model, Brinkman said.

Ignoring a summons should be punished, but I have to disagree with Justice Enoch if he is suggesting anyone really wants a person- intent on shirking their duty- on a jury panel or serving on a jury. Maybe someone will develop a system that has a higher rate of efficiency than 40% in the process.

A new question to ask during voir dire: "Are you here because you had to attend jury court?" You may go.

In one of our counties, the Dist. Clerk has to send out jury summons to 150 people in order to get a panel of about 60 people. The actual number who show, however, varies quite a lot.

In one trial we had quite a number of no-shows, and a lot of for-cause strikes. By the end of the day of voir dire, we ran out of veniremen. The court granted the def. motion to require the sheriff to try to hunt down the jury summons scofflaws who failed to appear, and have them in court the next a.m. As a precaution, the sheriff was also ordered to find additional veniremen the traditional way--by shanghaing citizens to come to court.

I was surprised the next a.m. to discover that the S/O was only able to find 5 people who had failed to come on the first summons. One was a woman with a newborn, another was a very, very old man who slowly walked with a walker, both of whom took their exemptions. Another was a fellow who'd been working on an oil rig in the gulf, and just got home that night. Two were just scofflaws, who, it turned out, were struck for cause for some reason.

I think most people honor their jury summons. But the clerks tell me that since the state went to using jury lists that use drivers licenses and state I.D. cards, as well as the traditional voter roll, the number of bad addresses/dead people, etc. on the list has gone way up. The voter rolls are much more closely watched, and kept up to date. On the other hand, most people don't bother to get a new D/L when they move, but wait till their D/L is about to expire before they update the address. Additionally, D/L and I.D. card addresses simply state the individual's postal address, not the county in which they live, like voter rolls do. In rural counties, at least, it is very common for people to have a P.O. Box in the nearest town (or the town where they work, or do the most business in) which may not be their residential address, and often is in another county. The result is a lot of bad addresses on the jury summons list, as well as people who live out-of-county called for jury service.

I am certain the failure rate for veniremen to come to jury service would be much lower if jurors were only drawn from voter rolls.

[From Texas Lawyer]

Licking Jury Duty

Legislators and policymakers seem to be of two minds when it comes to coaxing the citizenry to show up for jury duty. On the one extreme, there is the stick approach: Texas courts may hold those who fail to appear in contempt, and they may be fined up to $100. On the other side is the carrot approach: In 2005, the Texas Legislature hiked juror pay from $6 to $40 a day after the first day of service. Now comes the U.S. Postal Service weighing in on the carrot approach. The postal service is trying to raise the public's awareness of the civic importance of jury service through its newly minted jury duty commemorative stamp. Historically, the postal service has reserved social awareness stamps for battles against major diseases; this year it's jury duty. The "Juror Duty Social Awareness" commemorative postage stamp received its public feting in a stamp dedication ceremony on Sept. 12 at the New York County Courthouse in Manhattan. Speakers at the ceremony included American Bar Association Past President Robert J. Grey; Judith S. Kaye, chief judge of the State of New York; and Mary Anne Gibbons, senior vice president and general counsel for the U.S. Postal Service. The stamp features a diverse group of 12 representative jurors in silhouette, each in a different splash of color. Underneath the silhouette are the words, "Serve With Pride." No matter that juries are a cornerstone of our democracy, no matter that the right to trial by jury is a fundamental right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, no matter that juries protect private citizens against government tyranny, the stamp will still cost 41 cents.

Given the number of summonses that have to be mailed out to get a panel of sufficient size to get a jury, it's no wonder the postal service wants to commemorate jury service.