How Do They Decide Who Serves Jury Duty?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Last year, the state of Minnesota issued 190,000 summons for jury duty, which is about 4 percent of Minnesotans 18 or older. So, how does a person get called for jury duty? Good Question.
The state comes up with a list of people from three different sources: driver's licenses, voter registrations and state identification cards.
From that master list, people names are randomly chosen to receive a jury duty summons. Changing a name, registering to vote for the first time or even voting doesn't change a person's chances of being selected.
"It's completely randomized, the computer does it," Angel Lussier, the state's jury program coordinator, said.
Of the 190,000 summoned, the state says 12 percent are disqualified via the questionnaire sent to their home. They could be disqualified for a number of reasons, including no longer living in at that county, having a severe disability that cannot be accommodated, having been convicted of a felony, not being able to communicate in English, not being old enough or being a sitting judge.
People can postpone their jury service once, for up to nine months.
According to the National Center for State Courts, the national average for responding to jury summons is 91 percent. Minnesota doesn't keep recent statistics on that its response rate, but Lussier says it's better than the national average.
"It's a crime to not respond to a juror summons," she says.
Even if someone is summoned, there's only a 5 percent chance that person would be selected for a jury.
Jurors receive $20 for each day of jury service. Some companies will pay workers while they're on jury duty, but there's no law that requires it.
After serving on jury, a person cannot be called to serve again for another four years.