Plan aims to boost jury pool diversity
http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080103/NEWS04/801030333/1005/news
Grebner said a major flaw in today’s system is that jury lists are out of date by the time counties are ready to use them.
The Secretary of State’s Office is required by law to provide driver’s license and personal identification card lists to counties by April 15.
Counties then send jury questionnaires to a subset of that group, followed by jury summonses.
But Grebner says those lists typically aren’t used for jury pools until the following winter. For the most part, the lists provided last April will be used throughout 2008.
The lag time means that many people, especially college students and renters in urban areas, will have moved and will be harder to reach – particularly if they don’t have forwarding addresses.
Grebner said he believes a better solution would be to require the Secretary of State to provide updated lists monthly to the counties.
Grebner said counties are inconsistent in how aggressively they pursue residents who failed to return jury questionnaires.
“The whole process, it’s a bucket that leaks in a lot of places. The only answer the jury board knows is to get a bigger bucket,” he said. “And I keep saying why not fix all the leaks?”
