Clallam County citizens could be called to serve on a jury twice as often as those in Jefferson County each year.
The lists for jury pools are compiled by the state Administrative Office of the Courts and sent via CD to the various counties.
But in Clallam County, as in most counties, the pools for District Court and Superior Court are drawn separately, said Clallam County Superior Court Clerk Barbara Christiansen.
In Jefferson County, the courts are drawn from the same pool, so jurors would serve only once a year at most, said Jefferson County Clerk Ruth Gordon.
Avoiding a jury summons isn’t easy, both clerks said.
It involves not having a driver’s license, state identification card or being registered to vote.
“Many people think that it is done by voter registration, but it hasn’t been done that way in a long time,” Gordon said.
“They found that wasn’t accurately representing people’s peers, so they started taking names from license and ID as well.”
Lists of potential jurors are compiled at the beginning of each year.
In Jefferson County, the list for this year consists of 27,715 voters, and 300 summonses are sent out every two weeks for jury pools in the county, Gordon said.
In Clallam County, the list contains 61,474 voters, and 320 summonses are sent out for Superior Court cases every two weeks, Christiansen said.
In Clallam County District Court II, based in Forks, 70 summonses are sent out every two-week term, said Sabrina Bees, court administrator.
In Clallam County District Court I, based in the Port Angeles courthouse, 60 summonses are sent out every two-week term, said Glenna Pitt, senior court administrator.
District Court juries consist of six instead of 12 jurors and one alternate rather than two, Pitt said.
The Forks district sends out more summonses than the Port Angeles district because many residents either are not citizens or do not speak English well enough to serve, Bees said.
Both are allowable exclusions to serving on a jury, she said.
“I’m lucky if I get 20 to 25 returns every term,” Bees said.
Names of potential jurors are loaded into a computer program. Each program differs by county, but all of them work in similar ways, Christiansen said.
The program is designed to select a completely random jury pool, she said.
“Everyone is entitled to a randomly selected jury of their peers,” Gordon said.
Clerks have the authority to excuse jurors based on statutes, Gordon said.
People summoned will be excused if they fit into any of several categories, Christiansen said.
The reasons the clerk may dismiss a juror are:
• Not a citizen of the United States or a resident of the county.
• If a person cannot communicate in English.
• If a person is a felon and has not had rights restored.
“We get a lot of people who try to get out if they have a disability or are sick, but that isn’t up to us,” Christiansen said.
Categorical exclusions are not allowed by the Clerk’s Office, Gordon said.
In Cowlitz County, the jury management clerk, Sue Anderson, deleted the names of voters older than 80 from a master list of potential jurors, apparently in an effort to save money, officials told The Daily News in Longview.
She deleted about 3,000 out of the eligible 82,000 voters, the newspaper said.
The newspaper reported it didn’t appear she broke any laws but that disciplinary procedures had begun.
Gordon said such exclusions might be possible with an order from a judge.
“In that case, with an administrative order, we would carry it out under that order,” she said.
Even then, she said, it might not be upheld.
“This is just my opinion, but even if there were an order like that and the judge ordered all those over 70 to be excluded, there could be a case for age discrimination,” she said.
“But we have no such order here.”
Christiansen said in Clallam County, the system that is used would prevent names from being deleted.
“I’m not even sure we could,” she said.
Once a person has been called for jury duty, that person cannot be called again for another 12 months at each court level, including District, Superior and federal, according to law.
Occasionally, a name will be in the system twice accidently because the database draws from several sources, Gordon said.
“They try really hard to not have overlapping names,” she said.
“But sometimes, that does happen, but that person can then be excused.”
In Jefferson County, the names for District Court and Superior Court cases are drawn from the same database, so that a person isn’t called twice in the same year for a county trial, Gordon said.
“They could, however, be called to be on a jury for federal court in Seattle,” she said.
In Clallam County, the District Court and Superior Court juries are drawn separately, so potentially a person could be legally called twice — once for each court level, Christiansen said.
Gordon said the main goal of her and other clerks is to ensure a fair jury.
“What we all want is for people to have access to a random jury of their peers,” she said.
“We all want a fair trial for each person.”
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
