[ The proposal was inspired by a pilot program in San Francisco
that has increased the racial and economic diversity of the county’s
jury pools by providing $100 daily payments to low- and
moderate-income jurors.]
[[link removed]]

CALIFORNIA JURY PAY COULD SOON INCREASE TO $100 A DAY  
[[link removed]]


 

Soumya Karlamangla
June 27, 2023
New York Times
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ The proposal was inspired by a pilot program in San Francisco that
has increased the racial and economic diversity of the county’s jury
pools by providing $100 daily payments to low- and moderate-income
jurors. _

The Civic Center Courthouse building includes the San Francisco
Superior Court., Jeff Chiu, STF / Associated Press

 

Californians could soon be paid far more for jury duty.

A bill
[[link removed]] moving
through the State Legislature would give certain jurors $100 a day for
serving on a criminal trial jury, a big jump from the current daily
rate of $15. If the legislation passes, jurors will be eligible for
the higher stipends in Los Angeles, Alameda, Kern, Monterey and San
Francisco Counties through 2025.

The proposal was inspired by a pilot program in San Francisco that has
increased the racial and economic diversity of the county’s jury
pools by providing $100 daily payments to low- and moderate-income
jurors. In California, employers are required to give workers days off
to complete jury duty, but they don’t have to pay employees’
wages.

In San Francisco, more than a third of residents say that serving on a
jury poses an economic burden, according to city officials. So many
lower-income jurors were being excused for financial hardship that
juries were becoming increasingly wealthy and white, because of the
correlation between income inequality and race, said Assemblyman Phil
Ting, who sponsored the new legislation. That further slanted the
criminal justice system against people of color, he said.

During one criminal trial observed by San Francisco’s public
defender’s office, people of color made up roughly 50 percent of the
initial pool of jurors. After jurors were excused for financial
hardship, the composition of the jury pool became 39 percent people of
color and 61 percent white people.

“We’re always promised a jury of our peers,” Ting, who
represents San Francisco, told me. “Most folks in criminal court, a
lot of them are middle to low income. They really come from very
modest means. But that’s not who serves on juries.”

The city began its program in March 2022, offering $100 to anyone who
made less than 80 percent of the local median income — that is, less
than $74,600 for a single person and $106,550 for a household of four
— or was unemployed, self-employed or employed by a company that
didn’t compensate for jury service.

In the first year of the program, 495 people participated, 60 percent
of whom were people of color, said Anne Stuhldreher, the director of
San Francisco’s Financial Justice Project, which oversees the
program. Participants’ average annual income was $38,000, and the
vast majority of them said they could not have served without the
extra money.

“We’re under no illusions that this solves every problem in our
criminal justice system, but hopefully this can make it just a little
more fair for people,” she told me. “It does result in more
economically, more racially diverse juries, and I think they’re
better positioned to administer justice.”

The legislation, which Ting’s office says would cost roughly $5.5
million per year, would expand the program to include four additional
counties that, with San Francisco, make up more than a third of the
state’s population. As with the pilot program, jurors would be
eligible if their income is 80 percent of the median income for their
county. No groups publicly oppose the bill.

The public defender in Alameda County, Brendon Woods, told The San
Francisco Standard
[[link removed]] that
he supported the bill, and he recounted a recent case in which a Black
client faced a jury with no Black people on it. He said it reminded
him of when only white men were allowed to serve on juries.

“Oakland does not have a shortage of Black people,” he told the
news outlet. “But we do have a shortage of Black people when it
comes to those serving as jurors.”

_Soumya Karlamangla is the lead writer for the California Today
newsletter and is based in Los Angeles._

* Jury pay
[[link removed]]
* diversity
[[link removed]]
* equal justice
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]