Clerk reports erroneous juror response rates

Carl Jones of the Daily Business Review in South Florida analyzed Miami-Dade County juror response rates and found the county actually had about a 25 percent response in 2004-05 — rather than 54 percent as reported by the Office of the State Courts Administrator. And its true average monthly percentage for the last six months was 38.4 percent, not 95.3 percent. The county's Clerk of Courts confirmed his office has used a different method for reporting jury yield than that advised by the state since late 2004. "After the state of Florida took over responsibility for funding core justice system costs in July 2004, the job of jury pool management shifted from courts administrators to the county clerks of the courts. " The jury yield statistics help clerks and court officials plan how many people they need to summon to garner large enough jury pools for judges and trial lawyers to select from. Florida, like most other states, is struggling to improve declining rates of jury service compliance.