Our good friends at the National Center for State Courts’ Jur-E Bulletin covered the new online jury system for the US District Courts. 52 districts out of 94 have the system up and running with an expected 81 to fire it up by the end of the year. All I can say is WHOOPPEE !!!
The eJuror Program is appended to the courts’ Jury Management System and allows jurors to respond to summons, answer qualifying questionnaires, update personal information, check when they are supposed to appear, request an excuse or deferment and select alternative service dates online. Wow !!
The pilot courts reported that 33% of the test jurors chose to use the system and the Administrative Office plans to track the data over the rollout period to see if the number increases. The Travis County (TX) District Clerk’s I-Jury program showed a disproportionately high number of citizens used their online services compared to demographics that indicated the elderly, the poor and Hispanics would likely not use the Internet. The Clerk’s Office anecdotal evidence showed the previous manual system requiring an initial personal appearance for qualification and subsequent appearance for the actual service was so unpopular that traditional technology have-nots found alternative ways to access a computer just to avoid the hassle.
I’m particularly pleased with the development because this means the feds have raised the bar for state trial courts by offering online jury services as a baseline E-court delivery application. It will be a lot harder now to argue that virtual jury services are too hard or not worth the effort.
Coincidentally, I have been called for jury duty at my local court and only offered in-person, phone or fax as methods of managing my service. I would MUCH prefer to surf my way through qualification, postponement and service confirmation. I plan to bring this development to their attention.
Chris Crawford www.justiceserved.com
Photo credit = Norman Rockwell’s The Holdout at Global Gallery
Entries (RSS)