FEDERAL COURT EXPANDS JURY SUMMONSES

The San Diego federal court will be expanding the reach of its jury summonses in an effort to draw a more diverse slice of the community to sit on trials, the court announced recently.

The change comes after attorneys, bar organizations and law professors challenged the court to look beyond voter registration records to summon potential jurors, saying the singular database does not draw a fair and representative pool.

Relying solely on voter registration records leads to an underrepresentation of Black and Latino people, who are shown to be less likely to vote than Whites, according to experts.

The Southern District of California court — which also serves Imperial County — will now include California driver’s licenses and identification cards in its jury wheel, the master list from which eligible people can be randomly drawn for service. The other three federal district courts in the state already use this method, as do state courts.

If a summons is returned as undeliverable or not responded to in a timely manner, the court will send out a new summons to a person living in the same ZIP code. The amended plan also confirms its historical use of the National Change of Address Database to update its lists.

“The Court has incorporated many of the suggestions offered by the community, in an effort to go beyond the legal requirements and to reach more people in the community who may be eligible for jury service,” according to the court’s order, signed by all judges.

The new plan will be evaluated after two years to see if further changes should be made.