Making Room for Jury Service

There is no doubt that something must be done eventually to alleviate overcrowding in the jury assembly room at Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana. The conditions are creating inconvenience for those who already may be making sacrifices to fulfill their civic duty. For court administrators, there are logistic and safety problems to contend with. For example, recently paramedics had difficulty getting to a prospective juror who had collapsed, making it necessary to evacuate the room.

The problem has become aggravated in recent years, as it has become more difficult to find jurors. The courts did reduce the term of jury service from four weeks to just one trial to accommodate ordinary citizens, but the policy means that more people actually go through the jury assembly room nowadays. In all, about 400,000 prospective jurors were summoned to the courthouse last year.

Recently, supervisors informed court officials that the county could not afford a $1.5-million project to ease the overcrowding. A proposed expansion would have created a second jury room in a portion of the courthouse’s third floor cafeteria room. This would have doubled the overall assembly space. The request was for money from the general fund.

Unfortunately, the request came at a time when the county was still reeling from bankruptcy. The county is also dealing with the larger problem of allocation for the courts. The final county budget provided only a portion of the money needed to pay for court operations, and the question of state funding remains an issue.

To their credit, the supervisors seemed concerned enough about the overcrowding problem, but clearly, $1.5 million is a lot of money for the project. The board also turned down a proposal by Supervisor Don Saltarelli to spend $150,000 to design a jury room. The sensible path was to examine alternatives, such as using space in an adjacent building.

The problem obviously is serious when on the Tuesday after Labor Day, jurors waited in lines that stretched outside the courthouse, while parking lots and nearby streets were jammed. Something clearly needs to be done to avoid discouraging jurors further from serving. The court should explore alternatives, and perhaps look to other counties for models of less costly improvement.