Judge urges better participation in jury process

Sep. 22—An individual's right to trial by jury is a tenet codified in the United States Constitution.

According to the website of the West Virginia Association for Justice and numerous other organizations, founding father John Adams, the second president of the United States, said in 1774, "Representative government and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty. Without them, we have no fortification against being ridden like horses, fleeced like sheep, worked like cattle, and fed and clothed like swine and hogs."

Circuit Judge Thomas H. Ewing, the chief judge of the 12th Judicial District in Fayette County, is of the notion that some members of the public need to take the call to jury duty a little more seriously.

"You think about jury service as a right that each of us have," said Ewing. "I think most people look at it from the perspective as an obligation or a duty that they don't want to have to do."

Ewing said the court system has experienced apathy in some corners for fulfilling an obligation to jury duty in recent months.

"Over the last few orientations, I've really focused on trying to get people to understand that the defendant in a criminal case has a right to trial, and if we don't have any jurors to show up, anybody that are willing to serve on the jury, then what right to trial do you have?" he asked.

The commitment to being a juror is "to the whole process of society," Ewing stressed.

"In the four years I've been doing this, there are people that love to do it, and they do it and they don't complain," Ewing noted. "There are people that do it and they complain, and that's fine, but they do it.

"Then there are people that don't even show up, they don't respond to the summons for orientation, they don't respond to the summons for when they're actually supposed to be actually appearing for a case. So that creates problems."

Ewing mentioned one particular instance in which Judge Paul M. Blake Jr. had a list of 30 potential jurors on tap for a trial, and only 16 showed up. Entreaties from the circuit clerk's office didn't yield enough respondents, so, "After a few hours, Judge Blake just continued the trial. They had to reschedule it to another day."

In trials, 12 jurors are seated, and one or two alternates are in the mix. At the minimum — to allow for likely strikes from counsel on either side — 20 juror candidates must be on hand, Ewing explained.

"The problem it's caused is that you have trials that aren't happening, or delays in the morning when they're trying to get the jury," the judge said. "The last trial I had, I had a guy who said he had a flat tire and he couldn't get here. He was at work already, so I had to send a bailiff out to pick him up and get him in here.

"Judge Blake has had a few times recently where people didn't show up, so they had to come in and explain why they didn't show. And they didn't show for the show cause hearing, so there was a bench warrant out."

When that occurs, the possibility of being jailed for contempt exists, Ewing said.

An indifference to jury service has become a more frequent occurrence, he said. It may not strictly be construed as apathy but could be simply misunderstanding or "maybe just a lack of interest in the jury process from ... not everybody," Ewing said. "But there are a handful of people every time that just seem to not take this seriously.

"The problem is that it affects defendants and civil litigants and their rights, and also failure to respond to a summons and failure to be (involved) in the court process could result in people being held in contempt and placed in jail.

"I look at it as I want people to want to serve not because they see it's something they're obligated to do but because they see the value in doing it."

To induce more participation, state and local court officials have "done some things to try to make (the process) more user-friendly."

Within the past year, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals has introduced a brief educational video that discusses much of the activities which transpire during juror orientation. "It emphasizes in 12 minutes the important points of jury service and why jury service is important," said Ewing.

A local system of daily calls to potential jurors has — with an assist from the Fayette County Commission and the county circuit clerk's office — evolved into automated software being used to reach out to potential jurors, a system similar to an emergency notification system, the judge noted. "We've gotten pretty good feedback with that. Hopefully, that will reduce some of it (the seeming indifference or reluctance of some)."

While grand jurors are seated for an entire term of court, which allows for more regular scheduling of their activities thus potentially making it easier to serve, petit jury service is where participation problems are more common.

And, Ewing points out, there are situations in which individuals are automatically exempted from pulling jury duty, such as being aged 70 or older.

"Covid was a big thing to deal with," he adds. "I think it made it worse because I believe we were more flexible letting people out of jury service when Covid was going on." Unless an individual tests positive or has direct exposure to someone with Covid-19, Covid "is no longer a viable excuse."

Another excuse often utilized for not serving is that people say their employers don't want them to miss work. "There are some barriers that prevent an employer from keeping a worker to serve," Ewing said. "Everybody that is on the jury panel experiences some of the same conflicts (with work or other facets of their lives)."

"I realize in people's lives they have things going on with jobs and family," Ewing concluded. "They're looking at all the things they have to manage and maybe think jury is not important.

"For me, it's getting them to understand that (jury service) provides 'tremendous value for the community and obviously for the court system and the people involved.'"

If they do take part, it "opens their eyes to how what they do matters and it's such an important civic obligation."

Email: skeenan@register-herald.com or follow on Twitter @gb_scribe