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Jefferson County Courthouse
After more than a year of pandemic-induced postponements for all jury trials in Jefferson County, officials say they’re having a hard time drumming up summer jurors, stalling the wheels of justice for some.
“That further hampers the backlog of people that are sitting in jail or who have a case,” said Jefferson County District Clerk Jamie Smith. “You have civil cases where you have a death involved at a plant or a car wreck or malpractice, so now these people are waiting for justice to be served. And it’s because citizens are not signing up for jury duty to complete their civic duty.
“We have people signed up, and we’re sending out notices. We’re just not having enough people respond to the notices and sign up once they receive notice.”
Smith’s office oversees the administration of jury summons, sending letters to its pool of approximately 155,000 potential jurors in the county. Despite what Smith says should be a sufficient jury supply, the county clerk’s office has to send multiple rounds of letters to muster the numbers necessary to fill a 12-person jury, with ample alternates.
“If we got even a 50% response rate, that would be fantastic,” he said, revealing the response rate was approximately 4% in the immediate aftermath of COVID. “Normally, it’s 20-25%. It’s between 5 and 10% now.
“When the trials were kinda stalling to get going again, that small percent was OK. Now that the courts are fully open and rocking and rolling with trials, we need people to respond to their jury summons and come in and serve.”
People were hesitant to come in for jury duty as COVID flared up a few times between the time in-person trials resumed in 2021 and early 2022, Smith told The Examiner. Even though COVID restrictions have been lifted and local positive cases have dwindled, jury response is still too low, he says.
Because juror responses wane each summer, Smith surmised that a portion of the absences can be attributed to families vacationing. However, he thinks this year has seen a larger drop off, likely due to travel restrictions diminishing.
But Smith says jury duty doesn’t have to get in the way of vacationing. In fact, he implemented a program allowing potential jurors to view a 90-day period of potential jury service. Those summoned for jury duty may select which days work best for them during that time period, meaning already scheduled family vacations can still go ahead as planned after mom or dad is summoned for summer jury duty.
“I always tell people, ‘What if it’s your loved one there?’” Smith posed. “You want them to have a speedy trial; that’s their constitutional right. You want them to have a speedy trial so if they’re innocent, they can be set free. Or, if you’re the victim’s family, somebody can be proven guilty and sent off to jail to serve their time.”