House Committee Examines Jury Service

by, Nanette Forbes                                                                                                         Legislative Liaison

The House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence, chaired by Rep. John Smithee (R-Amarillo), met on May 19 to examine issues related to jury service in Texas, including participation and response rates, the accuracy of jury wheel data and possible methods to improve response and participation.

Among the witnesses that provided testimony on the interim charge were Heather Hawthorne, Chambers County Clerk, and Patti Henry, Chambers County District Clerk, representing the County and District Clerks’ Association of Texas.

Clerks draw names of prospective jurors from a jury wheel. In Texas, the jury wheel must be reconstituted by using “names of all persons on the current voter registration lists” and “names on a current list furnished by the Department of Public Safety (DPS) showing citizens who: hold a valid Texas driver’s license or valid personal identification card or certificate issued by the department and are not disqualified from jury service.”

The information received on the jury wheel is sometimes insufficient to locate jurors or inaccurate. The main issues with the jury wheel system include bad information like addresses, insufficient contact information and the names of convicted individuals and even the deceased still showing up even after being reported. There is also the problem of prospective jurors just not showing up after receiving their jury summons.

Many bad addresses are due to citizens not updating their driver’s license after they move. Many people do not change their driver’s license address unless it is a significant move out of the county or city. When the jury wheel is reconstituted, clerks are not receiving a resident’s most current address.

The only contact information in the jury wheel is a home address. Many people living in rural areas do not receive their mail at a physical address and that seems to be the only address that pulls over from their driver’s license, making the juror summons undeliverable.

District clerks report that the response to jury summons in Texas has declined 20 to 30 percent. Due to some of the insufficient and inaccurate information contained in the jury wheel, clerks normally summon a large number of prospective jurors in order to impanel a jury. Even with a large pool, some potential jurors who do respond to their summons are exempted from service for various reasons.

The committee reviewed recommendations, including adding phone numbers in the jury wheel, which would allow clerks to contact no-shows to determine why they did not appear and provide them with the ability to correct any misinformation in their addresses. Another recommendation was to allow district clerks the capability to upload verified changes in addresses and eligibility to serve as a juror from the jury system to the Secretary of State and have that information override the data received from DPS.

The clerks made several other suggestions, including clarification and language to permanently exempt felons from the jury wheel, a statewide marketing campaign to educate people about and encourage participation in the jury system and collaboration with DPS and the Secretary of State to develop solutions to correct bad addresses and insufficient contact information.

The issues with inaccuracies in jury wheels that clerks must work around has a substantial fiscal impact on counties and ultimately property taxpayers. Counties must spend more time and money to require the same amount of people to appear for jury selection, expend more man hours to determine why people did not respond to their jury summons and correct any inaccuracies and incomplete information.

The committee is expected to issue a report with its recommendations prior to the beginning of the next legislative session in January.

This article was originally published by Texas Association of Counties.