Jury Reform Deserves Support

With his signature, Gov. Pete Wilson could vastly improve the experience of many Californians called to jury service. A bill now before the governor would require, beginning in January 2000, that every trial court limit jury service to one trial or one day on call.

Close to half of California’s 58 counties, including Orange and Ventura counties, have already moved in this direction. Jurors not assigned to a case on the day they report for service are dismissed, their duty completed. This one-day-or-one-trial approach has won over prospective jurors, and it has also won support among the judges in those courts, some of whom had feared they might not have enough people on hand for all the trials. But the system has provided enough jurors, with less crowding.

However, in Los Angeles and some other counties, jurors still are summoned for 10 days of service, sometimes stretching over three weeks. The interminable wasted hours, the exasperation of being herded hither and yon and the cramped quarters that pass for jury waiting rooms in too many courthouses do little to build respect for our justice system or for the jury process among those summoned for this solemn duty.

The bill, authored by Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), sensibly builds in some wiggle room for counties unable to make the leap to one-day-or-one-trial by the end of next year. That leniency should be matched by help from the Judicial Council, the policymaking arm of the state courts. But first, this bill needs Wilson’s support.

The push toward one-day, one-trial statewide is part of a broader, continuing effort by Chief Justice Ronald M. George and the Judicial Council to improve jury service. Those initiatives include writing jury instructions in lay English rather than legalese and renovating the many dilapidated and entirely inadequate courthouses around the state.

Wilson last month vetoed a modest bill that would have raised juror pay from a chintzy $5 a day, rock-bottom in the nation, and would have launched a small pilot program to provide child care reimbursement so parents who must take care of children could serve as jurors. The Legislature should revisit this issue next January with the new governor.