A Jury Room for the Net Set

Struggling to attract more people to jury service, Orange County thinks it has found the answer: making the courthouse feel a little more like your own house.

Court officials Monday unveiled a new jury assembly room that they hope will become a statewide model for treating prospective jurors with greater hospitality. Jurors will now wait on faux leather couches and ergonomically designed chairs just steps away from the courthouse cafeteria instead of standing or sitting on the floor for hours in the old assembly room.

Where the old waiting room was claustrophobic, with little ventilation and no windows, the new, expanded lounge allows jurors to gaze through large picture windows onto Santa Ana’s Civic Center Plaza. There are 24 study carrels with modem connections so jurors can use their computers to send and receive e-mail or access their office. A network of seven large-screen televisions and a video projection system have also been installed to make the waiting game less grueling.

The assembly room, which can accommodate as many as 600 people, is the state’s largest and cost more than $1.5 million. The idea, officials said, is to make jury service less of a cattle call.

California counties have been finding it harder to get people to come out for service, which in some cases has delayed trials. Courts have tried such measures as shortening the length of jury service and increasing pay. But Orange County officials said the answer might lie in improving creature comforts.

“We’re hoping that once word gets out about the new assembly room, we’ll see more people showing up,” said Thu Nguyen, the court’s jury manager.

Each year, courts in the state summon roughly 10 million people to jury duty. Of that number, 25% appear, call the courthouse to reschedule or are found ineligible to serve. Orange County courts fare better. Of the 800,000 residents who are called to serve each year, 69% respond to the notices or show up.

Still, the Orange County Superior Court hopes to reduce its rate of hard-core jury-duty avoiders with the new room. Thirteen percent of those residents summoned for jury duty fail to show up or contact the court. Others postpone their assignments. Said Nguyen about those who ignore the summons, “We call them FTAs--failure to appear[s]. That’s a dirty word here.”

Monday’s unveiling coincides with the beginning of Juror Appreciation Week.

Jurors familiar with the old assembly room said the new digs were a vast improvement.

Munching on popcorn, jury candidate Lillian French said she does not have fond memories of the old assembly room.

“It was cramped and it was stuffy and a lot of people were forced to stand outside,” said the 42-year-old Santa Ana resident and school administrator. “It was a total surprise when I got here. The best thing is that people can get work done when they’re waiting.”

Another prospective juror, Gary Stenberg, 51, of Irvine agreed. “This is so luxurious compared to the old one it’s not even funny,” said the Orange County Fire Authority captain.

However, Stenberg did have a few suggestions for improving the area. “There’s a fire extinguisher here, but nobody would ever know about it,” he said. “It’s off in the corner and there’s a bush in front of it.”

Stenberg said he mentioned the problem to court officials, and they said they would make the device more visible.

In the jury assembly room, prospective jurors wait to be assigned to a courtroom, where they are selected or excused from serving on a jury. Experts on juries said the assembly room is important because it is often the juror’s first introduction to the legal system.

G. Thomas Munsterman, director of the Center for Jury Studies, said the greatest disincentives for jury service are loss of time from work and difficulty arranging for child care. For this reason, courts in Orange County and elsewhere in the state will often reschedule jury service if a citizen requests it.

Munsterman said the best inducement to jury service is past jury service. “All the surveys show that once people have served, they felt it was a very rewarding experience.”

He said many jurors also enjoy the opportunity to meet people, both as friends and romantically.

“I bet there are people trolling this room right now,” he said.