Thoughts On Jury Duty

From Todd Fairbanks, Vice President of Research

I was recently called to federal jury duty in downtown Los Angeles, and after two postponements due to a busy travel schedule, I showed up in person to explain why a pre-planned business trip to the Midwest would once again preclude me from serving.  (Yes, even jury consultants get called for jury duty, and no, we don’t automatically get stricken for cause.)

Since federal cases typically summon jurors from a much wider geographic area, some in the venire drove from as far as 80 miles away (in L.A. traffic, that one-way trip takes approximately five weeks).  To top things off, El Niño had started with a vengeance, lengthening commutes and explaining the haggard, exasperated faces all around me.  The mood was tense.

This general malaise is something we and our clients often encounter during jury selection.  Based on this, the conventional wisdom states people in your venire don’t want to be there and think jury service is an inconvenient waste of time, which makes for indifferent, detached and even hostile jury panels.  And having helped select juries for trials across the country, and having heard the ridiculous excuses employed to try to get out of jury service, I can see why that is a common perception. 

Furthermore, poor show rates for jury duty seem to back this up.  For example, according to a 2015 San Francisco Chronicle article, “About one-fifth of Californians in the state’s most populous counties fail to respond to a summons for jury service…”.  The article goes on to say things are particularly bad in Ventura County, where the no-show rate is an alarming 45 percent.

However, the article doesn’t focus on the jurors who do actually show up, and their level of engagement and willingness to participate in this fundamental aspect of being a U.S. citizen.  Although it’s true most jurors could think of something they would rather be doing than serving on a three-week trial, another way to look at it is that most of the jurors who brave traffic, weather and inconvenience to arrive at the courtroom do want to be there, which can provide an advantage to the side that taps into this fundamental desire. 

Along these lines, we always recommend that prior to jury selection our clients specifically address the inconvenience of jury duty and how you and your trial team will respect jurors’ time and service by making things as concise as possible while ensuring they have all the information they need to make an informed decision.  Of course, it’s incumbent on counsel to do everything possible to follow through on that promise.

However, just because someone shows up to the courtroom (whether by fear of fine or imprisonment, or a genuine sense of civic duty), that doesn’t automatically mean they will be receptive to your story.  This stresses the importance of conducting pre-trial Internet and social media audits of your venire once the juror list becomes available to look for telltale signs of favorable and unfavorable jurors.  Even if the list is made available only moments before jury selection begins, our team is able to conduct online research and send pertinent findings to your trial team in real time.  This type of research is vitally important because it can uncover viewpoints, biases and negative experiences that might not otherwise surface during voir dire. We talk to more than a hundred jurors each and every month and have helped research and select jurors for dozens of trials, which gives us a unique sense of the qualities that make favorable and non-favorable jurors.  If you and your trial team could benefit from a fresh perspective when selecting a jury, please contact Senior Vice President Claire Luna (who has actually served on a jury, in Ventura County of all places) at 714.754.1010 or cluna@juryimpact.net.