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Monday, May 07, 2007

Ind. Courts - "Marion Superior Court judges plan to start cracking down on prospective jurors who don't show up on the days they're assigned"

Jon Murray of the Indianapolis Star writes today of failures to show for jury duty in Marion County. Some quotes:

In Marion County, failing to show up for jury duty is common. Fewer than half of those called actually come in the day they're told to report.

Starting this summer, Marion Superior Court judges hope to break residents of that habit by giving them a second chance to show up if they've already ignored one summons this year. If they fail to appear again, the judges will start bringing down the hammer. * * *

Last year, 22,932 -- or 52 percent -- of potential jurors failed to come in on their group's assigned day.
Stoner said the judges share some of the blame.

"The courts have bent over backwards in not holding people responsible," he said. "We should have been sanctioning jurors all along." * * *

Other metro-area counties don't share the problem. Marion County has a few hundred trials each year, more than the eight other counties combined.

But large cities share the same challenge -- largely, experts say, because people in places such as Detroit and Los Angeles think there are plenty of jurors to take their place, and no consequences.

Each year, Marion County's jury pool coordinators send about 120,000 summonses. Some people reschedule or make other arrangements, and some are never called in. About 30 percent end up with an assigned day to come to the City-County Building in Downtown Indianapolis. Not everyone called in gets on a jury. * * *

This isn't the first time Marion County's judges have tried to boost the turnout. They appealed to the public in late 2005 when the rate of no-shows regularly began exceeding 60 percent, despite a rate closer to 54 percent for the entire year.

The judges hoped one reform, which took effect last year, might help. Lists of potential jurors provided by the state began including names from more than voter registration records, which were full of outdated addresses. Now the state checks with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the Indiana Department of Revenue.

In Marion County, undeliverable summonses dropped by one-third last year, to 16 percent. But the jury pool saw only a slight improvement in the number of potential jurors who showed up.

A sidebar notes: "Court officials lobbied the General Assembly to allow counties to reimburse potential jurors for parking instead of mileage. Gov. Mitch Daniels has signed the bill, and the judges now will ask the City-County Council to make the change."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 7, 2007 07:07 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts