Jury Duty

It seems whenever there is a high-profile legal case, the verdict that comes back is never the one that most people would have reached.  One has to wonder, then, what kinds of people we have serving on jury duty in this country.  To correct this problem, I would like to suggest the following:

Since a trial by jury is guaranteed to all Americans it seems that as nearly all Americans as possible should be allowed the opportunity to serve on a jury.  What holds many people back is the fact that they can't afford to take the time off from work.  To alleviate this, we need legislation that states that every employer must pay their employees for jury duty.  The employee would receive the same salary as if they were at work.  The employer would get this money back in a refund on their income taxes.  For employers with less than 100 employees, the jury duty would be capped at two weeks.  For employers with employees from 100 to 499 would be capped at three weeks and employers with 500 or more employees would be unlimited.

Courts today pay jurors a very small sum of money.  This would be stopped for all jurors who are employed, as they would continue to be paid by their employers.  Only the unemployed would receive payment from the courts for their jury service.

Next comes jury selection.  The courts should broaden their pool by using not only voter registration as a means of identifying jurors but also drivers licenses, cell phone contracts, cable television contracts, medical insurance, vehicle insurance, etc.  All of these companies would be required to submit to the local courts a listing of names, addresses and social security numbers.  The courts would then cross-reference the information and use this as their pool for summoning jurors.  By increasing the pool, it would be easy to then limit service to no more than once in a three year period.

Finally, we need to expedite the trial system.  The current practice of attempting to stack a jury in one's favor must be eliminated.  When a case is going to trial, 35 names should be pulled and those people should appear in the courtroom.  The judge will explain the trial and the length of time it will be scheduled to take.  If the case goes longer than two weeks, only those jurors who are paid beyond two weeks will be required to stay.  All others will be excused.  From the remaining jurors, the plaintiff, defendent, attorneys and witnesses will be named.  If anyone in the prospective juror pool knows any of these people, they will be excused.

From the remaining jurors, 12 names will be pulled, along with two alternates.  This will be the jury and the trial will begin.  The attorneys will not be allowed to question any jurors ahead of time.  This would eliminate much of the backlog at courthouses throughout this country.

We need this kind of common sense jury reform to ensure that all Americans are entitled to a trial by jury with a competent group of men and women sitting in judgment.