Twelve good people
Fewer than one in five New Zealanders called up for jury service report for duty. Why are so many Kiwis avoiding an important civic responsibility? Jimmy Ellingham reports.
The lawyers and the judge are in position, wearing their trial robes. In the dock sits the defendant – in this case a man on trial for raping and sexually violating two women – flanked by security.
Court staff usher in several dozen people ready to hear the case. The
12 chosen for the jury will decide whether the man on trial is guilty, part of an ancient legal right to be heard by your peers.
Among the throng shuffling in, some taking the few available seats in the back of the Palmerston North courtroom, others standing in the cramped public gallery space, are smartly dressed and casually dressed people, young and old, men and women, with one person knitting as she waits.
A court registrar draws names out of a box and people walk towards the jury seating, waiting to see whether they’ll be challenged by the Crown or defence. If they take a seat, they’re on the jury.
As an older man’s name is read he groans, before stepping forward. Those sitting nearby laugh and murmur sympathetically.
‘‘Dammit,’’ says another man who’s been called. He’s challenged. ‘‘That could have been you,’’ a man sitting next to him says once the
12 are chosen and the judge tells them what they’re in for.
‘‘It wouldn’t be a very nice case, this one – a yuck case,’’ one woman observes. ‘‘The prosecutor looks young,’’ says another.
It’s a scene that plays out several times a week around New Zealand.
Reluctance to serve on a jury seems commonplace as people boast among mates about ‘‘getting off’’ service, although once they hear a case it’s taken seriously.
But new figures obtained by Stuff show fewer than one in five people summoned for jury service reported for duty in the 2019-20 financial year. Numbers for previous years are similar.
In 2019-20, 135,031 were summoned across New Zealand. Anyone on the electoral roll, who lives within 45 kilometres of a courthouse, can be called up. Over65s don’t have to serve, but can if they choose to, while people unable to attend court can apply to be excused or defer their turn.
Of those summoned, 33,581 summonses were cancelled, 31,428 people were excused from service and 27,137 people deferred to a later time that suited. Just 17 per cent of people, 23,558, reported for duty.
About 13 per cent, 19,334 people, simply didn’t turn up, an offence under the Juries Act. In the past five years, just two people have been fined for failing to attend court for jury service, both in 2019. They were ordered to pay $300 and $150, respectively.
Job taken seriously
‘‘It sounds a bit cliched, but I think it’s a civic duty,’’ says one woman who sat on a jury in Palmerston North this year.
‘‘I’m grateful that my boss feels similar to me.
‘‘I know there were other members of the jury whose bosses just did not understand, and they were totally unsympathetic and were nagging them to come back to work in the afternoon when we finished for the day, or come in on the weekend.’’
One juror was particularly stressed about pressure from work and asked court staff to call her manager to explain what was happening.
For most trials, jurors get about $60 a day. That increases to $80 for hearings lasting six days or longer, but because those on jury service don’t have to be paid by their employer during that time, sitting through a trial can come at a cost.
Some businesses keep paying employees, but smaller ones may not have that luxury.
This contributes to the unenthusiastic feeling a summons generates, although the woman who sat on a jury says once the 12 are chosen, they are focused on doing a good job.
She found the constant breaks a waste of time and was grateful her trial lasted only three days.
She won’t go so far as to say she enjoyed the experience, but says she found it interesting. ‘‘I feel like you should do it. You want a full range of people doing it.’’
Experience rated but no jury data collected
Every year the Justice Ministry talks to more than 1000 jurors for its Juror Satisfaction Survey.
The coronavirus crisis scuppered last year’s survey, but in 2019 jurors were asked 24 questions about their experiences, waiting area facilities, information pamphlets and emergency procedures.
Ninety per cent of jurors were satisfied with their experience. Ninety-eight per cent thought staff were friendly, 71 per cent were told about emergency procedures, and 61 per cent were told how to find out a defendant’s sentence after a guilty verdict.
But jurors are not asked their attitudes to serving and the role they played; nor is data collected about who serves, gender, age, income or job.
The ministry was asked why such questions aren’t in the surveys and if it’s considering doing research into why people don’t turn up.
‘‘The ministry will consider this feedback for the 2022 survey,’’ says a statement from ministry chief operating officer Carl Crafar.
The last in-depth research into juries dates more than 20 years to the late 1990s, when the Law Commission considered the role of juries in criminal trials.
Who are the missing?
With so many refusing to serve or unable to, it’s possible that sectors of society are falling through the cracks and not sitting on criminal trials.
People who move regularly, for example, won’t answer a summons if they’re long gone from a property that an electoral roll shows them living at.
But with the lack of research or data collected about juries and people who don’t turn up, no-one knows for sure.
Whanganui Crown solicitor Michele Wilkinson-Smith, an experienced trial prosecutor and defence lawyer in hundreds of trials since the mid-1990s, isn’t aware of the exact figures, but says certain groups are absent from juries.
‘‘The biggest group missing are definitely the 40 or 50-year-olds in full-time employment. You don’t get a lot of them.’’
Of course, older people once in that profile still serve, but it means people with no job or jobs that allow them to come to court are overrepresented.
Different areas have different jury pools. For example, in Wellington, public sector workers able to get leave make up a good portion, whereas in areas such as Whanganui, self-employed people don’t want to be on juries because they can’t afford to be away from their businesses.
‘‘If they don’t go to work, they don’t get paid, so you don’t get the self-employed. That’s a shame. Lots of them have skills.’’
Wilkinson-Smith tells a story about a jury from a complicated fraud trial years ago. The jury included an accountant and it was thought he’d helped his colleagues get to the nub of the issue, but a court staff member found out a selfemployed panel beater had in fact got his head around it.
As for the common trope about dodging service, she wonders if this is because people don’t want to be seen to be keen or appear voyeuristic. Lots of people she speaks to socially say they would love to serve.
Lawyers for each defendant and the Crown get four challenges where, without giving a reason, they can object to people serving.
Wilkinson-Smith says she will challenge only for good reason, such as relevant convictions. But she won’t for appearance or similar reasons. ‘‘Everyone who’s a citizen has a right to be on a jury. I find constantly I’m surprised by jurors.’’
Does it matter that so many don’t show?
One reason behind a lack of enforcement or official interest in jury dodgers could be because most trials begin without a hitch, even with so many people ignoring summonses or finding reasons not to serve.
In 2019, six shirkers who didn’t show up to court in Hamilton were given a public dressing-down by a judge after they were finally hauled in.
The judge said their actions put a trial at risk, although he did not fine them. ‘‘The person on trial was in custody,’’ he said. ‘‘If the trial had not been able to proceed, he would have had to remain in custody for a few weeks, if not a few months.’’
And in 2014 a trial in Gisborne could not start, twice, because fewer than half the people summoned for jury duty showed up.
Palmerston North Crown solicitor Ben Vanderkolk, who has prosecuted more than 500 jury trials, says it’s disappointing to hear so many people don’t show up for what he described as an important inconvenience.
He couldn’t recall a case not starting because of a lack of jurors, but backs a suggestion from Auckland University law professor Mark Henaghan to educate people in schools about their responsibilities.
Vanderkolk wouldn’t like to see a punitive approach taken. ‘‘My sense is it’s not critical at the moment and
I don’t see trials falling over, but I think it’s just disappointing when there are large numbers of people who do not show.’’
The ministry was asked what can be done to improve attendance rates, how it can stop people not showing up and why more people aren’t dealt with by the courts for failing to attend.
Crafar says the ministry supports people who are called up by making sure those summoned have the information they need. It has a webpage with further details and an
0800 number people can call with questions.
‘‘Non-attending jurors may be subject to a fine under the Juries Act
1981. It is important to note that the ministry’s role is to support the judiciary in administering the jury process. The power to fine nonattending jurors rests with the court and not the ministry.’’
Henaghan says people not doing their civic duties is an important issue and, in the case of jury noshows, not one that’s well understood. When he attends court to watch trials it seems like a reasonable cross-section of society is represented on juries, but it’s hard to say for sure.
Given the at-times-gruesome images they see and evidence they hear, or the length of time they’re required to sit through a case, the sterling service of jury members deserves proper recognition.
‘‘People do take it very seriously, but you can understand why people think getting off jury service is quite a relief. You could be there for five weeks, six weeks.’’
Attitudes need to change and officials need to make sure jurors receive appropriate support and respect for their work. ‘‘It’s an important contribution to society. At the moment it’s, ‘I’ve been called to be a juror, what can I do to get out of it?’ We’ve got to turn this around.’’
‘‘The biggest group missing are definitely the 40 or
50-yearolds in full-time employment.