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Sunday, September 18, 2011
Ind. Courts - "No-shows plague jury trials in Indiana, Kentucky"
Harold J. Adams has the long story in today's Louisville Courier Journal. A few quotes:
Though it is unusual for a trial to be delayed for lack of jurors, courts in both Indianaand Kentucky often have trouble finding enough people to serve in civil and criminal trials — despite the fact that judges could find people who ignore summonses in contempt.The problems appears especially bad in Clark and Floyd counties in Indiana. Only 38 percent of the 39,839 questionnaires to prospective jurors in Clark County from January 2008 to July 2011 were returned.
And of the 7,235 people summoned to jury duty, nearly 1,200 didn’t show up.
In neighboring Floyd, where statistics are available only from January 2011 through August 23, the return rate on 4,500 questionnaires was 58 percent, with a no-show rate of 20 percent.
Statewide figures were not available for Indiana because not all counties use the jury-management system provided by Indiana.
The problem isn’t much better in Kentucky, where courts sent jury summonses last year to 495,283 people and received responses from only 62 percent.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 18, 2011 09:16 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts