As of August 2020
| Only way is to increase the draw. |
| Use of video based voir dire tends to increase participation, and increase the juror’s comfort level with coming to court. |
| [Redacted] Court has added a check off box in the jury summonses for persons over 65 with concerns about Covid. If the box is checked, the person will not be called to report for jury duty. This will skew juror demographics in favor of younger jurors, a concern of both sides of the bar. |
| Civil jury trials in [Redacted] County will not start until 2021. |
| Biggest issue here is not juror availability but lack of many trials going forward. pleas in crim cases are more favorable, due to prosecutor discretion. |
| Due to increasing summons to populations more likely to seek hardship requests, we have not seen a significant change in out actual reporting jury pools |
| We have had more juror response in that we have had more jurors planning on appearing than we needed. I have presided over 3 jury trials since June 8th (2 civil and 1 criminal) and in all three cases we did not have any issues having a cross section of the community on the jury. I start another civil (patent) trial next week. |
| We are struggling with this question. We have conducted only two jury trials since the pandemic, and unfortunately have far too little data for an effective assessment of this issue, let alone a response to it. |
| The start up of in-person is still dependent on the orders of our State Supreme Court and the directives issued by our local Health District. We are attempting to pilot zoom jury trials from start of impaneling to verdict. |
| We were to start live jury trials this week, but that case resolved. We have two set next week and more each week following. |
| Not really detecting a change in the cross section; requests for excuses are across the board. |
| This is difficult to respond to. There are definitely more hardship requests. But part of our reopening protocol involves our court prescreening for hardship requests and dealing with a large percentage of them before they even reach the courthouse. So for the trial judge, we are not seeing as many as we were pre-Covid because they have been dealt with before the individuals ever come to the courthouse. |
| I think there should be a more coordinated effort to move for virtual jury trials. |
| We will start civil jury trials in January 2021. I don’t have alot I can add at this point……….Thanks |
| I just concluded a jury trial. No one asked to be excused because of Covid. They enjoyed their service and appreciated the steps we took to make them safe. Jury trials are essential. We must and can continue to have jury trials. The results I found in my Division are consistent with courts in other parts of my District |
| The demographic concern, to be fair, should also look at self-exclusion of older people who tend to be much more conservative. I have actually seen this in a recent situation. If anything, COVID has tilted the jury pool in favor of defendants in criminal cases, and plaintiffs in civil cases. But the likely scenario is a wash. Fewer lower-end demographics, but ALSO fewer upper-end demographics (older, wealthy people) |
| Our population is not very diverse to begin with; I don’t know that there will be much change given that fact. We have not had trials actually proceed, but we did summon jurors for two trials in August. My replies here are based on the anecdotal information provided regarding requests for deferrals/excuses. Also, we have summoned jurors for grand jury service in September. |
| Call more people |
| We are excusing more in high risk category particularly age, but previously older jurors were overrepresented. |
| In [Redacted] County, we will not be having civil jury trials before January 2021. It is expected that criminal jury trials will commence in mid-October. These dates have moved in the past and may slide again depending on the state of public health. The yield of jurors responding to jury notices has dropped significantly. |
| We have started some criminal trials on a limited basis. My first jury trial will be September 9. Given our criminal backlog, we will not start civil jury trials until perhaps early 2021; more likely 2nd quarter 2021. |