Solid Citizens Court Justice for Jurors

Re “Juror Relief May Turn to Grief,” Feb. 24: Since the Los Angeles district courts can’t get their prosecutors to begin trial on time, jeopardizing the efficient “one-trial” jury system, they should model the behavior of the prosecutors and calculate how many jurors will really be needed each day. So long as the prosecutors’ collective behavior is consistent (e.g., 20% postponement rate on Mondays and Fridays, 8% on Tuesdays through Thursdays), a demand-supply model can be developed.

Similar to how the telephone networks determine capacity needs based on consumers’ phone usage behavior, the courts can collect statistics over a period of time and generate a fudge factor that will adjust for the number of prosecutors that day or week who will request a delay in trial. The number of requested jurors multiplied by the fudge factor gives the number of jurors really needed for that day. Problem solved.

Nicola J. Peill

Long Beach

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After having “served” 10 days and feeling like bored pieces of meat, jurors are usually much less sympathetic to the problems the courts have with delays of any kind, let alone prosecutorial delays. The time for jury panels of six instead of 12 is long overdue, be it for one day of service or three weeks of an indeterminate jury service sentence.

Steve Lawrence

Los Angeles