Changes OKd to Ease Trial of Jury Duty : Courts: Service is being cut to five days to save expenses and improve panelists’ morale.

Jury duty in Los Angeles County--a civic obligation for some, an exercise in eye-watering boredom for others--is about to be cut in half.

Within the next 30 days, jury service in Municipal and Superior courts countywide will be reduced from 10 days to five, a move that will save about $2.2 million a year in mileage and fees paid to prospective jurors who mostly end up sitting around, court administrators announced.

But cost saving was hardly on the minds of gleeful jurors in the downtown Criminal Courts Building on Wednesday. It seems that many of them greeted their jury summonses as they would a draft notice.

“That’s fine with me,” juror Danny Stringer said, noting that he would rather operate his forklift in a warehouse during a heat wave than sit in a jury assembly room.

The Superior Courts Executive Committee, 20 judges who set policy for the courts, adopted the changes Tuesday to boost jurors’ morale and to encourage businesses to pay employees who are called to serve.

Over the last five years the number of employers willing to pay workers on jury duty has dropped 28%, forcing the jury system to excuse more prospective jurors, which results in a smaller jury pool, said James H. Dempsey, court executive officer and jury commissioner.

“We have received a lot of feedback from jurors and employers who say 10 days is too much,” Dempsey said. “We believe this will improve the morale of jurors and enhance the support from the business community.”

A second proposal adopted by the committee will reduce the size of panels from which juries are selected. Jurors for cases expected to last fewer than five days will be chosen from a panel of 25 rather than the current 45 to 50, officials said. The new system is expected to require 40,000 fewer jurors a year, which will reduce the money that the county pays in mileage and in $5-a-day fees to its citizen servants.

Fewer jurors also translates into a reduction in the number of initial questionnaires sent to those selected to serve. It took more than 2 million questionnaires last year to find 164,000 people who ultimately served.

The reduction in the number of days that jurors must serve is among many changes aimed at making jury service more pleasant, Dempsey said. Jury assembly rooms are being spruced up with new carpeting and furniture. Fax machines and personal computer hookups will eventually be installed so idle jurors can work at their regular jobs, he said.

Many jurors complain that while they are waiting they have nothing to do but read the newspaper and watch television in the jury room.

“It’s really a waste of time. You go in, they kick you out. . . ,” said Hisham Majdali, a truck driver from Norwalk who had been rejected from his share of jury panels. “I’d rather be at work.”

But a few citizens seemed to find the experience pleasant--a 90-minute lunch hour, a business day that often ends at 4 p.m. and an assignment that, at least until you’re sworn in, requires little thinking.

Anyway, as Harrison Baxter of Long Beach said: “Somebody’s gotta do it.”