Improvements Planned to Ease Hardships for Jurors : Courts: Saying the system is near collapse, presiding judge calls for overhaul. But funding remains uncertain.

Contending that the jury system in Los Angeles County is “dangerously close to collapse,” the presiding judge of the Superior Court on Wednesday announced the first of a series of planned innovations designed to make jury duty a tolerable experience, if not a pleasant one.

The initiatives, some of which are already being instituted, stem from two recent county studies that found shoddy treatment of jurors to be a widespread problem. The studies recommended a vast overhaul of the jury system and court officials have made that charge a top priority, Judge Gary Klausner said at a news conference at the Downtown County Courthouse.

But Klausner was less certain about where the financially strapped county will find the $4 million he estimated it will take to complete the project. County officials said Wednesday that they are equally concerned about deficiencies in the jury system but asserted that there is no money in the budget to fund some of Klausner’s proposals.

The initiatives range from such modest efforts as implementing a juror appreciation program to more ambitious reforms such as imposing sanctions on people who ignore jury summonses, upgrading jury assembly rooms, permanently excusing disabled or terminally ill people from service, and implementing a countywide, automated telephone system to handle the thousands of jury queries that frequently overload court phone lines.

The goal of the reforms is to alleviate some of the frustrations and annoyances that have drained the public’s confidence in the jury system and depleted the ranks of willing jurors, Klausner said.

He painted a picture of a judicial system that frequently exposes its jurors to harsher environments than its defendants, with overcrowded, dilapidated waiting rooms, insufficient and uncomfortable seating, poor drinking water and unsafe parking lots.

One Municipal Court jury room in Torrance is lodged in a dank basement and there have been instances in other courts where jurors have been forced to share a waiting room with defendants, Klausner said.

He noted that the spotlight focused on the O.J. Simpson case has highlighted some of the problems jurors face, but that the stresses and strains are widespread.

“People feel abused by the system; they are made to wait and treated in a fashion that’s not appropriate,” Klausner said. “It’s a system that turns people off.”

It is also a system that is in jeopardy of foundering, Klausner said. Half of the people who receive jury affidavits each year fail to respond, according to a review of jury records, and only 10% of those who receive jury questionnaires become qualified as jurors.

According to one of the jury studies by the county’s Citizens Economy and Efficiency Commission, the number of qualified jurors willing to serve has remained stagnant. From fiscal year 1992-93 to 1993-94, the number of jury affidavits sent out increased from 2.9 million to more than 4 million.

In spite of the additional mailings, the number of jurors who served--about 187,000--remained about the same.

Court officials fear that the juror shortage will be exacerbated by passage of the “three strikes” law, which has led to an increase in the number of trials. Partly to address this, Klausner wants to hire additional staff and develop methods of increasing the jury pool.

“What we’re faced with is dismissing cases because we don’t have the jurors there,” Klausner said.

Klausner’s concerns are borne out by the experiences of other judges. Municipal Judge Karl Jaeger said that in the last 60 days he has been forced to hold over trials on four occasions because he did not have enough jurors to impanel a jury.

In one recent medical malpractice case in which the meager coterie of potential jurors kept being diverted to criminal cases, trial was held over for four days while the judge waited for enough people to seat a panel. The defendants finally agreed to waive their right to a jury trial and the judge heard the case.

“It’s frustrating and costly for everybody,” Jaeger said. “It boils down to the public wanting to exercise their constitutional right to a jury trial but not wanting to exercise their constitutional duty to serve on a jury.”

Indeed, one of the more far-reaching initiatives likely to strike a chord with the public is the court’s tough new stance on jury summonses. During the fiscal year that ended in 1994, only 2.1 million people responded to the 4 million affidavits mailed out. Of that group, only 187,520 served as jurors.

Court officials intend to send notices to errant prospective jurors and fine them if they fail to perform their duty. It is a mechanism that has been available but unused in the past, said Superior Court spokeswoman Jerriann Hayslett.

“Before, it was a good faith thing, but now it’s a fairness issue,” she said, adding that the first “order to show cause” summonses are expected to be mailed by late August.

But officials also say many potential jurors have legitimate excuses for failing to appear and simply become frustrated by the system. Klausner said that 95% of the phone calls that people make to the court about jury duty go unanswered.

Alban I. Niles, presiding judge of Los Angeles County Municipal Court, said he recently spent hours trying to call jury services after his daughter, a graduate student at UCLA who had been called for jury duty, told him of her inability to get through to someone to try to postpone her service till after college exams.

“I finally called the administrators and told them citizens can’t get through on the phones,” he said.

Niles also said that a group of judges at the Metropolitan Traffic Court recently pooled their resources to purchase a television, magazines and a vending machine for beleaguered jurors in the division. “The judges have known there have been problems for a long time and want to see these improvements,” he said.

But many county officials doubt that the resources are available. Los Angeles County, which provides the bulk of court funding but faces a possible $1-billion funding shortage, is asking courts to cut their budgets by about 20% in the next fiscal year. That could mean a $20-million cut for Superior Court alone, said Chief Administrative Officer Sally Reed.

“I have had a general discussion with court officials and share their concerns, but I don’t think it’s realistic to look for $4 million at this time, unless we get additional court funding from the state and federal governments,” she said.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky agreed.

“It’s not just the court system that is on the verge of collapse. The health care system is on the verge of collapse, the welfare system is on the verge of collapse, the county is on the verge of collapse,” he said. “I just don’t see where the money could come from.”

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Proposed Reforms

Gary Klausner, presiding judge of the Los Angeles County Superior Court, is recommending a number of immediate and long-term improvements to ease the stresses and inconveniences of jury duty. Klausner estimates that the reforms would cost about $4 million and be completed by 1997. But the county’s ability to fund the reforms is uncertain. Among the proposals:

* Stepped-up targeting of jurors who fail to respond to summonses, with the possibility of fines or other sanctions.

* A countywide automated telephone system to handle juror calls.

* Creation of a juror outreach program to remind prospective jurors of jury service, dates and locations.

* Increased court staffing to better serve jurors and the public.

* Refurbishing of jury assembly rooms.

* Production of a juror orientation video.

* Volunteer focus groups composed of former jurors, judges and court staff to explore ways to improve the system.

* A program to recognize jurors and their employers for their contributions. It would include meals and service discounts for jurors provided by local merchants and informational packets providing idle jurors with lists of activities, sightseeing tips, etc.