Assemblymember Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, introduced new legislation this week that would pay low- to middle-income California residents $100 a day when serving jury duty.
Assembly Bill 881, labeled Be the Jury California, seeks to build on San Francisco’s pilot program that raised jury service stipends for criminal trials from $15 per day to $100.
If passed, the bill would provide $100 a day stipends to jurors with household incomes less than 80 percent of their area median income.
Though state employers are required to provide time off for employees called for jury duty, they do not have to provide paid leave.
Residents can file an excuse from jury duty if they cannot afford to miss days, weeks or months of their salary.
Ting said this is causing a significant inequality in providing diverse juries that reflect the communities it serves in court.
“This bill would make criminal juries across California fairer and a more accurate reflection of their communities, bringing us all closer to what the Constitution promises — a jury of our peers,” Ting said. “The right to a jury of one’s peers is at the core of our justice system. Individuals from all economic classes are entitled to serve on juries and should receive adequate compensation for doing so.”
Ting’s bill is backed by a slew of Bay Area legal figures, including both San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju and San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins.
“This bill will improve the criminal justice system statewide significantly by ensuring that more residents are able to perform their civic duty across the state,” Jenkins said. “When all people, regardless of income, are able to participate in the process, we get better outcomes.”
Supporters said the bill would expand the pool of potential jurors in California courts, as financial barriers are causing juries to be increasingly less diverse.
“Too often, our indigent clients in San Francisco, as well as across California, are not afforded the right to a jury of their peers when nobody on the jury looks like them or comes from their communities,” said Raju. “Be The Jury CA can start to re-balance the scales of justice.”
“Prior to the San Francisco pilot, juries here were trending whiter and wealthier, which threatens the right to a jury of one’s peers,” said Yolanda Jackson, executive director and general counsel of the Bar Association of San Francisco and its Justice & Diversity Center. “No individual should have to choose between feeding their family and carrying out their civic duty as a juror.”
15 comments
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Why just $100? The extra $85 to fill up the gas tank. Hey Phil, 100 bucks doesn’t go far when your living in the real world. Go do something to create jobs for people.
$100 a day and tax-exempt, should be the minimum for everybody, no matter what their income is. Lunch should be catered, and parking should be validated. Never mind this civic duty nonsense, pay the people. Even the ones that aren’t picked for jury duty, pay them for the time they wasted sitting around the courthouse, only to be dismissed. Local governments never have a problem throwing money at their ever failing pet projects, but they are too cheap when it comes to jury pay.
I believe in the concept of civic duty, but they shouldn’t make it so difficult to do. I agree with free parking, lunch vouchers, and a reasonable stipend for people whose employers don’t pay for Jury Duty.
When your on as jury you get free parking and the stipend just covers a lunch, thats it.
Hopefully, in some way this extra cost can be used to reduce frivolous lawsuits.
So if a white suspect commits a trial worthy crime in a primarily black community, what then?
Hang Em High !
For $100 a day I’m going to deliberate that case forever. Beats spending all my time on my feet in my regular job as gas station cashier. Likely tax free too.
IRS states it is taxable income unless you give it to your employer in order to receive your regular pay.
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Then there’s a bunch of info about you may or may not be able to deduct some expenses related to the duty….
So… The taxes you paid in the first place could be given back to you as jury pay (your tax dollar) & (income) and then you pay tax on it again.
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Isn’t the government wonderful…..
$100 a day is too high. You’ll get jurors that are just there for the money, and they might want to stretch it out for extra pay. A reasonable stipend (higher than $15 – lower than $100) makes sense.
Whatever the pay is all jurors should be equally compensated. Do you want jurors deciding your fate when they may be angry knowing the juror next to them is being compensated more than they are. Unequal compensation will likely lead to non-impartial jurors talking their anger out on defendants.
…. now if they would remodel the jury room and court seats …. too small and uncomfortable … from recent experience
I would love it if juries did look like peers of the criminal. Whatever it takes to achieve that, I’m all for. Divert the funds for jury payments from other wasteful expenditures, like the homeless study group.
I know people who never registered to vote because they had a fear of being put on jury duty. they were deathly afraid of being held hostage by the court and not being able to work
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