Most jury service exemptions would be eliminated under proposed legislation that would overhaul state laws detailing how jurors are selected in Tennessee.
The proposal will be considered when the Tennessee Judicial Council meets at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), 511 Union Street, Nashville. The council will decide whether to recommend the changes to the General Assembly.
The suggested revisions to jury service laws were prompted by a bill sponsored by Rep. Rob Briley, said David Haines, general counsel for the AOC. Haines served as AOC liaison to a committee created by the Judicial Council to review jury service statutes and make recommendations to improve the system.
The committee’s changes would do away with most absolute exemptions in the current law, such as those for certain professionals, the disabled and the elderly. Instead, judges could grant hardship exemptions on a case-by-case basis.
“Under the law now, doctors, lawyers – certain professionals – and others can defer service when they are called. They are supposed to specify a seven day period when they will be available to serve, but in some counties, they just aren’t called for service,” Haines said. “As a result, jury pools are not always representative cross-sections of the community.”
The legislation being proposed includes recommendations included in a model piece of legislation, The Jury Patriotism Act, drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Counsel. Most of the changes track recommendations made by the American Bar Association and the Tennessee Bar Association, Haines said.
“The subcommittee polled court clerks to find out what works and what doesn’t work,” Haines said, “Some parts of the current laws are pretty archaic, such as the requirement that counties have jury commissioners. Those are a throwback to the time when everyone knew everyone else and whether they were morally and otherwise fit to be jurors.”
Under the proposed legislation, jury commissions would be eliminated and court clerks would be designated instead to select jury pools. It also provides for separate jury coordinators where necessary.
Other changes include removing a provision of current law that says the names of prospective jurors should be drawn from the box by a child under the age of 10 or by a blindfolded adult. Under the proposed law, an automated system would be the default method or the clerk would draw names.
“The subcommittee believes all of the changes they are proposing would improve the jury system in Tennessee and some of them are long overdue,” Haines said. “The draft has been circulated to the state Judicial Conference, the Public Defenders Conference and the District Attorneys Conference. Comments from each group were solicited and considered.”
Members of the subcommittee are Chairman Jeff Henry, Deborah R. Alexander-Davis, District Attorney General Dan Alsobrooks, Representative Briley, Sen. Dewayne Bunch, Judge Lee V. Coffee and Tom Hatcher. Supreme Court Justice Cornelia Clark, who served on the American Bar Association’s Blue Ribbon Commission on the American Jury, said a goal of the Judicial Council committee was to promote appreciation of the jury system and improve the response rate to summonses.
The Supreme Court conducted a jury service study and adopted rule changes in 2003. The changes, which included allowing jurors to take notes and submit questions for witnesses, resulted from recommendations by the Tennessee Bar Association Jury Reform Commission.