About 4,500 Detroiters were summoned each year to jury service at the Wayne County 36th District Court — but the court held only a handful of jury trials.
That situation is about to change under a new program announced recently by Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Michael J. Talbot, special judicial administrator of the 36th District Court. Effective July 1, Talbot said, the court will institute the “As Needed Jury Program.”
The impetus, Talbot explained, is the “very large gap between the thousands of people summoned to jury service and the very small number of jury trials — 10 to12 per year — that the court actually held.”
Talbot said 36th District Court will no longer send jury summonses for that court. Instead, jurors will be drawn as needed from Detroiters summoned for jury duty to the Wayne County Circuit Court’s Frank Murphy Hall of Justice.
The program works as follows, according to Talbot: When a judge of the 36th District Court is certain he or she will have a jury trial, a request will go to the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, which houses the criminal division of the Wayne County Circuit Court.
“When juries have been selected for trial at the circuit court, the circuit court jury services department will notify the district court of the number of Detroit residents who are available for jury service from the circuit court pool,” he said.
Court officials will arrange for potential jurors to have transportation from Frank Murphy to the district court. After jury selection is completed, the remaining jurors will be dismissed.
The goal, said Talbot, “is to remove an unnecessary burden from hundreds of Detroiters, while at the same time having these citizens be part of the Wayne County jury pool, improving jury diversity in Wayne County.”
The program will also save taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to Talbot.
“Each person who reports for jury service, even if he or she never sees the inside of a courtroom, must be paid $25 and mileage according to state law,” het said. “By ending the unnecessary summons of 4,500 citizens, we save their time and the taxpayers’ money.”
Summonses have already gone to Detroit citizens for the month of July, he noted.
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