Judge Attempts to Dispel Negative Feelings Toward Jury Duty
Judge Robert M. Letteau supervises the 26 departments in Van Nuys Superior Court and is charged with managing the civil caseload, as well as working with the on-site jury commissioner to ensure a stable jury pool. Letteau was interviewed about the experience of jury service by Times correspondent Thom Mrozek.
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Question: Many people see jury duty as nothing more than a hassle. Assuming that the vast majority of people dislike jury duty -- even if they have never been summoned -- why has this general consensus developed?
Answer: I think it is a matter of either looking at the glass as half full or half empty. If you want to look at jury service as a distraction, as something that stands in the way of what we normally do, you might understand why people have negative feelings.
To look at the glass being half full, one of the first things I tell jurors is: This is a terrific opportunity. It’s putting on a different kind of hat. It’s a walk in a different direction. In all my years, I don’t think I have ever had anybody tell me they didn’t enjoy the experience. And not all the trials are interesting, but it is interesting being a juror and a decision-maker.
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Q. Isn’t it the perceived lack of efficiency in the court system that scares people away from jury duty?
A. In a facility the size of Van Nuys, I believe that it’s handled just about as efficiently as it can by very hard-working people who do have some real consideration for the very valuable time and the needs of potential jurors.
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Q. A complaint often heard, both in civil and criminal trials, is that even after jurors are selected, they spend a great deal of time waiting in a hallway. Do the courts work to avoid problems such as that?
A. We as judges talk about the need to be sensitive to the value of jurors’ time, which is a precious commodity. Most of the judges are very conscientious about sticking to assigned starting times. I have always told jurors in my courtroom that if we’re delayed as little as four or five minutes for something unforeseen, I will have my court staff go outside and tell the jurors that we’re awfully sorry and we will start a little late.
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Q. Do you think that is the norm in the rest of the courthouse? After all, a five-minute delay is only an instant in “court time.”
A. In my experience, it’s much easier to manage civil cases. In a criminal court, the circumstance may be such that as a matter of fundamental fairness to the defendant, and given the constitutional requirements, the judge may have to be much more accommodating to the lawyers when matters not earlier identified suddenly take away from the time allocated to jury proceedings. I think that is unfortunate, but I am not sure it is avoidable.
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Q. It’s been several months since Los Angeles County courts returned to the 10-day period for jury service. You had a five-day program for about one year, but administrators determined it was not working.
A. If you work from the premise that it’s going to be one trial or five days, it sounds great. The only problem is that companies start tailoring their jury duty policies to allow only five days. So if a juror is not immediately sent out and selected for a case, the next thing you hear is, “My employer is only going to pay for five days and this is going to be a real financial hardship.”
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Q. What about the one day/one trial system used in some other jurisdictions? On the first day you either know you’re going to be on a jury, or else you’re free to go.
A. Let me tell you what I think is wrong with that. I think employers, for the most part, can make adjustments if they know one or two months in advance that a given employee is going to have a limited period of time on jury duty. If you have one day or one trial, you’re going to have, with greater frequency, employers saying they didn’t plan on this employee being selected and not available for five or more days.
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Q. I have noticed over the past several years that the overwhelming majority of potential jurors--perhaps 90% or 95%--fall into four categories: retirees, students on break, government workers and employees of large corporations.
A. I agree, but it doesn’t concern me. I think if you have a small business with only a few employees, then it presents a real hardship to lose someone for an indefinite period of time. You anticipate that it will be less than 10 days, but it can be longer. You have to recognize it’s going to be much more difficult for a small business than it is for General Electric or Walt Disney, for example. I think we just have to deal with it.
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Q. Do the four types of people generally seen in the jury assembly room really represent a jury of your peers, especially because it seems to me the majority of people that show up for jury duty are retired people.
A. I think it’s skewed somewhat by the reality that certain people--retirees for example, by virtue of their time availability--may have a greater enthusiasm for jury service. If we send out jury questionnaires, we are more likely to get responses from retired people who are anxious to put as much back into the system as they can after their retirement.
I have no problem if the jury pool is slightly skewed in favor of those people who have a greater availability of time. I just think that’s a practical reality.
I think these juries make terrific decisions, better decisions than could be made by 12 judges, because they do represent a cross-section of the community, maybe not a totally pure cross-section, but nonetheless a good, a fair, a representative cross-section.
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Q. What about the $5 a day that jurors make?
A. It is a pitifully small amount. It was $10, but this was reduced because of budget constraints. This is such a nominal sum that most people look at it as something that is virtually nonexistent. If I had my druthers, I think it would be great for jurors to be recompensed for the true cost of their services. That would be along the lines of what they make in the labor market, and that would be a figure many times $5. I think $5 is almost an insult.
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Q. You send out questionnaires before a person gets a summons for jury service. But if I get a questionnaire and throw it out, nothing is done. Shouldn’t the county go after these scofflaws, and shouldn’t people be more actively encouraged to become part of the system?
A. I think they should be actively encouraged, but if someone in my court says that they don’t want to be a juror, then I’m not going to make them be a juror.
It’s a privilege to be a juror, to be a decision-maker, to be a judge, to be a trier of fact. If someone doesn’t want to be part of it, then I prefer to have them somewhere else, outside my courtroom.
Now some people would say that’s fine because they never want to serve as a juror. But, you know what, these people end up as litigants. I tell jurors that I hope when they leave my court that they feel if they were litigants they would be happy to be judged by someone having their own mentality, their own frame of reference, their own sense of fairness and fair play.