Jury Duty Scofflaws Get Hit in the Pocketbook

David A. Harper had successfully avoided jury duty for years.

Like so many others, he had repeatedly ignored the pink jury summonses that had arrived in his mailbox--and nothing had happened.

Then he received a different kind of notice, one that he didn’t think he should dismiss so quickly. Harper, 34, was ordered to appear at the San Fernando Courthouse or be fined $1,500.

“For many, many years it hasn’t been a problem,” said the Van Nuys small-business man. “This time it looked like I needed to do something.’

Harper is one of thousands of Los Angeles County residents being threatened with big fines for failing to report for jury duty. The crackdown is part of a countywide effort to triple the number of potential jurors under the new one-trial system, under which most jurors spend significantly less time at the courthouse.

Under the program, jurors who aren’t called into a courtroom on their first day of service are released. Previously, they were required to serve for two weeks.

“This is an awareness campaign,” said Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Paul Gutman, who ordered nearly 200 people to pay the maximum $1,500 fine last month when they failed to show up in his Van Nuys courtroom to explain why they had missed jury duty.

“It’s not punishment,” he said. “It’s not revenue collection.”

At the San Fernando Courthouse, Superior Court Judge William A. MacLaughlin told prospective jurors recently: “We would rather have you appear as a juror than impose a monetary sanction.”

Jurors are mailed two notices before they are sent certified letters advising them to complete their juror service by a certain date or explain their absences to a judge, court officials say. If they do neither, the letter warns they could be fined $1,500 and still be required to fulfill their jury service.

The court turns the outstanding fines over to a collection agency. The money goes into the county’s general fund.

Surprisingly many people, like Sara Dunbar, 24, of South Pasadena, don’t respond to the final notice and have been fined.

The stunned UCLA student rushed to Gutman’s courtroom a week after receiving a letter from the court stating that she had been assessed the maximum amount. “I thought, ‘This is a mistake,’ ” she said.

But a jury official testified that Dunbar, like thousands of other prospective jurors, had been sent three notices, including a certified letter, and that she had not responded until she learned the fine had been imposed.

Dunbar said she hadn’t received earlier notices sent to her parents’ home. “I don’t live at that address anymore,” she said.

Gutman suspended the fine on the condition that Dunbar complete her jury service within a month. If not, he warned, the geology major would have to pay the $1,500--and still do jury duty.

Court officials are now mailing 10,000 sanction notices each month, up from 2,000 to 3,000 a month, said Gloria Gomez, who administers the court’s jury services.

The court targets a different geographic area each month, she said, and then holds sanction hearings in that community.

Gomez said she does not know how many people have been fined or how much money has been collected, but she offered a sampling of statistics for one Superior Court district.

Of the 10,000 recalcitrant residents mailed jury notice warnings in and around Pasadena, Gomez said, 712 were fined $1,500 for failing to respond. Another 626 ended up serving jury duty, she said.

While that may seem like a small percentage, she said many of those who are mailed notices have moved away or do not qualify for jury service. The names of recipients are drawn from voter registration and Department of Motor Vehicle lists. Under state law, jurors must be, among other things, U.S. citizens, at least 18 years old and proficient in English.

Superior Court Judge Jacqueline A. Connor, who heads the court’s trial jury committee, believes the effort is working. About 85% of the jurors in Santa Monica now tell court officials that this is their first jury experience, she said, compared with about 15% in past years.

Juries once were largely made up of retirees and government employees who had unlimited paid time off for jury duty, Gutman said. Now they represent a broader cross-section of the population, including judges, lawyers and other public safety officials.

Court officials say they also are trying to improve the juror experience. They recently spent $2 million to refurbish the jury assembly room in Santa Monica, set new guidelines for how long jurors may be left idling in courthouse corridors, and fully implemented the one-trial jury system.

The higher turnover has forced court officials to summon more jurors and get tough with those who try to wiggle out of service.

The court expects to mail 4.5 million jury summonses in Los Angeles County this fiscal year. In June, it was MacLaughlin’s turn to preside over the sanctions hearings. He ordered a woman who said she had missed her last court date because she had a kidney transplant to report to the jury assembly room when she felt better.

A frustrated Ron Coleman of West Hills threatened in a letter to the court to wheel his 91-year-old mother-in-law, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease and dementia, into Gutman’s courtroom for a sanctions hearing.

He said he was having trouble getting her permanently excused from jury duty and didn’t want her to be fined for not responding to the court’s letter.

“I couldn’t seem to get through the bureaucracy,” Coleman explained. “I couldn’t find the right person to talk to.”

He finally resolved the matter by writing a letter to Gutman. Coleman said he, not only got results, but also an apology from the court.

Michael O’Brien also was angry when he learned he would have to appear before MacLaughlin in June to avoid being fined for missing jury duty. The single dad said he did not have anyone to pick up his two young daughters from school each afternoon.

When the judge gave him no choice, O’Brien, 36, at first was defiant. He reported to the San Fernando courthouse with his children in tow. MacLaughlin ordered him to return another day--alone.

Despite his early disdain for the process, O’Brien, a first-time juror, said he was enlightened by his experience.

“I always circle-filed those summonses,” said O’Brien, who operates a voice and data outlets business from his Valencia home. “Now I tell people that it isn’t as bad as it used to be.”

He said he plans to show up for jury duty next time--without a judge’s order to do so.