Jury Service Committee

Chaired by Commissioner Catherine Law, Esq., the overarching priority of the Jury Service Committee is to increase inclusion and participation on juries throughout the Commonwealth.

Committee Feature

The right to a jury trial is woven into the fabric of our court system, constituting a hallmark of citizenship and a touchstone of civic duty. Both the U.S. and Pennsylvania Constitutions guarantee individuals the right to a jury of their peers, pooled from “a representative cross-section of the community.” Despite these guarantees, the Final Report of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Justice System found that few judicial districts collect juror demographic information. The Report also noted that due to financial and other difficulties related to transportation and childcare, women and people of color were routinely excluded from being able to serve on a jury.

Since its inception, the Jury Service Committee has been working to reduce these and other barriers to jury service. In February, the Committee assisted in organizing an informational session before the House Judiciary Committee on jury service issues such as jury compensation and composition, juror mental health, and access to childcare. Although no follow-up legislation was introduced, the Committee has continued to advance the work. The Committee recently reviewed pamphlets prepared by several judicial districts that outline the potential mental health consequences of serving on a jury and provide a list of resources to mitigate that impact. After also conferring with mental health practitioners, the Committee then developed its own pamphlet template and shared it with all 60 judicial districts in Pennsylvania so that they can easily modify it for local use. Several districts have already implemented the pamphlet, and others are following suit.

The Committee’s current initiatives include the following:

• Supporting legislation designed to make jury service less challenging by providing free parking to jurors for the duration of their service and increasing juror pay from $9 per day
• Urging the amendment of statewide rules to explicitly permit districts to collect and retain aggregated juror demographic information.
• Exploring civic time off (“CTO”) programs, court childcare options, post-trial counseling services, and the challenges resulting from districts’ use of the AOPC Statewide Juror List
• Working with the Criminal Justice Committee to develop an implicit bias video and jury instructions, to be presented to jurors during the course of their service
• Actively participating in a special committee organized by Judge Juan Sanchez to improve community outreach for jury service