Pilot Program Puts Jury Duty a Phone Call Away

Los Angeles County Superior Court administrators today kick into gear a “one-step” phone-in service for jury duty, a pilot program they’re touting with excitement as “convenient” and “user-friendly.”

Beginning today, some prospective jurors will receive by mail a different kind of summons, one that directs them when and where to report for duty--with instructions to call a toll-free number first.

Once on the phone, they will answer electronically cued questions to ensure they are available and qualified for jury service.

Now contrast that with the current laborious process: Court officials mail out a questionnaire inquiring about availability and qualification. Then they await responses. That can take weeks. Jurors who do respond get a second mailing, the actual summons, which tells prospective jurors where and when to go.

The Superior Court’s presiding judge, Robert Parkin, said the streamlined process should reduce the ranks of jurors who are summoned but not impaneled--and who end up twiddling their thumbs while enduring soap operas on TV in jury assembly rooms such as one of the worst, the dingy basement of the Torrance courthouse.

“We fully expect it will cut down on waiting,” Parkin said.

From the perspective of court administrators, the one-step system, which they believe is the first of its kind in the nation, ought to provide much-desired predictability.

“We summon people, but we don’t know until the day they’re due how many people actually are there,” said Gloria Gomez, the Superior Court’s juror services manager. “Normally, that doesn’t occur until 10:30 in the morning.”

And too many jurors can be as trying as too few.

“We can’t deal with juror overages,” said Gomez. “You get crowded jury assembly rooms and a great many things that are dysfunctional.”

On a typical day, about 7,000 people are serving as jurors in the county’s 41 courthouses, Gomez said. Annually, between 180,000 and 200,000 people report for jury service, she said.

In Los Angeles County, jury duty means serving either on a trial jury or waiting 10 days to be selected.