Hundreds face citation for failure to respond to jury questionnaires

Getting residents to attend or even respond to jury duty notices is an increasingly infuriating exercise for courts and law enforcement all across Montana, and authorities in Cascade County have begun to take a harder line on citizens who choose to ignore their legally mandated obligation.

On Monday the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office issued a news release warning Cascade County residents that if they do not complete and return their previously issued jury selection questionnaires by Oct. 12, they may be subject to a visit from a Cascade County sheriff’s deputy and a citation, and if they continue to fail to respond they could be subject to a contempt of court charge.

That in itself may not seem compelling, but the list of names that follows includes close to 1,100 residents of Cascade County, filling a list nearly 21 pages long. It amounts to a population nearly twice the size of Belt who are currently out of compliance with state jury assignment regulations.

To see if your name is on the jury questionnaire noncompliant list visit Cascade County's website at www.cascadecountymt.gov.

“lf a person fails to respond to the notice, the clerk shall certify the failure to the Sheriff, who shall serve the notice personally and make reasonable efforts to require the person to respond,” the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) news release states. “All persons who have not responded will be notified by phone, their name will be published publicly, and a deputy will serve the notice.”

The fine for failing to respond to a jury selection questionnaire is just $50, but the cost to taxpayers to ensure enough jurors are available to serve is far greater. At times it has endangered the function of the local court system.

“It’s a super heavy lift for us,” said Cascade County Sheriff Jesse Slaughter of the jury duty notifications they attempt to service. “Here’s the hard part, public safety doesn’t just stop. We’ve still got to go out and catch bad guys who’ve committed burglaries - and (the service of) all our other civil papers doesn't just stop.

"We need to remember that a temporary protection order is going to take precedence over this because there could be a deadly outcome if we don’t. If a child needs to have adjudication for them to be placed with the proper parent safely, that’s going to take precedence. When one issue breaks down like this one has, it overburdens you very quickly.”

“It’s a huge burden and we don’t have the manning to do it, not even close,” Slaughter continued. “This is literally hundreds if not thousands of hours of time serving papers. We’ll do the best we can to get it done.

“The time and energy required is enormous,” said Cascade County Clerk of Court Tina Henry of the jury notification process. “We get these printed out, we mail them out, and each one of those envelopes we get back we have to open them up, make any updates in our jury program and then we have to scan that questionnaire into folder.”

Henry said that each year the county sorts, prints and mails 15,000 jury selection questionnaires at a cost of around $50,000. These are the documents that establish the pool of potential jurors for the year ahead, most frequently lasting from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31. At most, the Clerk of Court’s Office can expect to receive 6,000 completed questionnaires in return – and of those only half of these will actually show up for the jury selection process.

“If it’s a drug charge or some kind of burglary we’ll summon about 100 jurors,” Henry said of the jury selection process. “If it’s a higher profile case like a sex crime or a homicide we’ll summon 150 to 200. Out of the hundred for a normal trial we’ll get maybe 50 or 60 to show up.”

“If we can get 40 or 50 through the door, we can seat a jury. We’ve only had one time where we didn’t have enough jurors show up.”

The problem extends to every level of Montana’s judicial system, from federal court to justice court. In August, Municipal Court Judge Steven Bolstad spoke of the problems facing his own judicial venue.

“Prior to COVID we started seeing an increase in mistrials because we could not seat a jury,” Bolstad said. “If we go past 180 days and the defendant hasn’t continued, it becomes a speedy trial problem. The case is dismissed.”

“We were calling 30 (potential jurors) for every trial setting … and we generally got anywhere from two to 12 to show up,” he explained. “In order to increase the odds, we started pulling 50 (potential jurors). Now we get maybe 20, and we can seat a jury with 20 people.”

“My clerks do the best they can,” Bolstad continued. “They try to contact jurors the night before, make sure their addresses are correct and make sure they are going to show up, but it is still lacking. We have a lot of people who do not want show up for a jury trial and sit in a jury for a day.”

All of the officials interview for this story said their has been a notable decline in citizen participation since the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic.

“During COVID when everything kind of shut down,” Slaughter said. “One, for a while they weren’t having court, and then on top of that going in for jury duty was not a pleasant experience. People got a really negative attitude toward the jury duty process. It wasn’t the court’s fault; it wasn’t the citizens’ fault. It just kind of gave everybody a negative vibe if you will.

“People have just changed their habits and are not responding to that paperwork because we really haven’t had the courts up and running,” he added. “Now were having a difficult time getting people to do this.”

The problem has become such an issue that officials from the Clerk of Court’s Office approached local judges, suggesting they begin adjudicating the no-response, no-show ordinances more strictly.

“During COVID some of the expectations fell by the wayside,” Henry explained. “If you didn’t show up for trial there were no consequences. The orders to show cause died off, and the word started getting out.”

“We had to approach the judges from the clerk’s office to say, ‘Hey, I think its time we start doing show-cause orders again,’” she added. “I hear all the crazy stuff like, ‘just throw it away they won’t do anything.’ Then I’m responding ‘no, don’t do that because yes we will do something.’ So, we’ve brought it to the judges’ attentions and if you fail to show up as summoned for a trial they are sending out show-cause orders.”

Part of the problem is the means by which names of potential jurors are collected. Henry notes that the potential jurors list the county receives is compiled by the state and that upwards of 20% of the list are individuals that are no longer available.

“If we didn’t have account for all the people who don’t respond, and all the non-deliverables, and all the excuses we wouldn’t need to send out 15,000 questionnaires,” Henry explained. “Where the contempt issue will rise is if they fail to appear as summoned. So, if they don’t respond to these notices and the sheriff makes an attempt to serve these notices and we still just don’t get a response … they still may end up in a jury trial. Then if they don’t show up, that’s when the judge can issue an ordinance to show cause.”

If you can’t supply a valid explanation as to why you didn’t show for a scheduled trial, that could lead to a contempt of court charge – a citation far more serious than failing to fill out a questionnaire.

Slaughter said that the system needs to be revamped, with potential jurors notified and encouraged to complete a jury duty notice any time they renew their voter registration, vehicle license or registration.

“I just think we need to get smarter and use different ways to contact these people,” Slaughter said. “The traditional, ‘Oh gosh, we’re so far behind. We need to go out and deliver these things is nor sustainable. We’re constantly getting frustrated.”

This article originally appeared on Great Falls Tribune: Hundreds risk citations for failing to return jury duty questionnaires