Trying to Arrest the Waiting Game : Jury service in L.A. County will be trimmed from 10 days to five

Many of us have greeted the arrival of a summons to serve as a juror in Los Angeles Superior Court with ambivalence. Solid citizens that we are, we want to participate in this nation’s remarkable justice system, in which ordinary men and women decide the fates of civil litigants and criminal suspects. Yet jury service, particularly in Los Angeles’ far-flung and crowded courtrooms, has left too many public-spirited citizens feeling more resentful than ennobled.

So it’s with pleasure that we note the Superior Court’s decision to reduce the term of jury service throughout the county from 10 days to five beginning in October and to reduce the size of prospective jury pools. These steps should cut the time spent waiting and may improve the odds of serving on a jury--without changing the racial and ethnic compositions of panels.

Los Angeles is wisely following many trial courts nationwide, including San Diego Superior Court, which just cut its term of service to five days from 10. Orange County Superior Court requires jurors to serve one day per week for one month. Ventura County jurors serve one day or for one trial; 30% of Americans now live in a jurisdiction that uses this “one day, one trial” rule.

What prompted the change in Los Angeles? Local employers have become increasingly unwilling to pay employees who are out for two weeks. That, along with the crushing boredom of waiting to be called for a panel, only to be rejected and sent back to wait again, has meant that in recent years more citizens have found reasons for the court to excuse them.

The integrity of the courts depends in large measure on wide participation by individual citizens. Those who actually serve on a jury are far more likely to have a favorable response than those who spend their time just waiting. The court’s new jury plan should make this civic duty a more edifying experience, and should prompt fewer people to look for a way out when the next summons arrives.

FO