Op-Ed: Honoring America’s Jurors on Law Day

The first of May marks our nation’s 47^th celebration of Law Day, the annual commemoration of the single most important characteristic that defines our society, our government and our way of life: respect for the rule of law. This year, the American Bar Association is marking this occasion by celebrating one of the cornerstones of the rule of law, the American jury system.

Begun in 1958 in response to the communist world’s May Day celebrations, Law Day is as relevant today as ever before. Communism may reside primarily in the dustbin of history, but our nation is still the standard-bearer leading the free world’s opposition to forces that resist the building of societies based on openness, liberty and equal access to justice.

One of the most important guarantors of justice devised by our nation’s founders is the Constitution’s promise that the accused persons shall be entitled to a trial by a jury of their peers. As such, jury service is as old and important a civic responsibility in our nation as voting itself. It is as much a part of what defines our form of democracy as anything else.

Unfortunately, this gift from our founders has struggled to maintain its relevance and credibility as the pressures of today’s world have conspired to challenge the jury system in some fundamental ways. In many respects, modern life discourages citizens from jury service in ways that our founders could never have anticipated. In an age of mass media, celebrity justice, hectic professional and personal schedules, and new complex legal issues, Americans want their privacy protected, their time appreciated and their intelligence respected. We in the legal profession owe it to them to modernize the institution of jury service so that our system does all of these things.

Approximately 5 million Americans receive summonses and report for jury duty each year. But for each one who does report, too many do not or cannot. Some can ill afford to take time off work. Others see high profile, seemingly endless trials like the Michael Jackson trial, and fear being required to serve for months on end. Many worry about their privacy. While most Americans have a profound belief and trust in the jury system, it is just too difficult for too many to answer the call to service.

We need to make it convenient to report when called and comfortable while they are there. Once they are selected, we should aid their understanding with plain language instructions in order to help them reach well-reasoned and fair verdicts, and protect their privacy all along the way.

Since becoming ABA president earlier this year, support of the American juror has been my overarching concern. I appointed an ABA commission to craft new, improved “Principles for Juries and Jury Trials.” These principles are intended to bring the American jury service into the 21st century. They aim to make it easier for people to report for jury duty by, for example, urging that employers be barred by law from discharging, laying off or denying advancement opportunities to employees who take time off work for jury service, or from requiring them to use leave or vacation time to do so. They urge jurisdictions to lessen the financial impact of jury duty by increasing the compensation provided to jurors who do report.

Once prospective jurors report for duty, the principles aim to ameliorate the jurors’ privacy concerns by, among other things, calling on jurisdictions to clarify the right of jurors to be questioned only about relevant subjects, to know how the information they provide will be used, and to answer sensitive questions privately.

The principles seek to help jurors with deliberations by calling for rules allowing jurors to submit written questions in civil trials that they would like the judge to ask a witness, allowing jurors to discuss the case they are hearing while the case is ongoing, so long as all jurors are present for the discussion, and to be given written copies of jury instructions to take with them into deliberations. Finally, when the trial has concluded, the principles urge judges to inform jurors of their right to talk to anyone about the case – and the right to refuse to talk to anyone, including the lawyers and the press – and to ask the court’s help if anyone persists in questioning them about their service over their objection.

Together, the “Principles for Juries and Jury Trials” aim to spark a dialogue about how to increase the percentage of people who view jury duty as a high calling of citizenship and therefore increase the number of people who report when summoned. As Thomas Jefferson said, “I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.”