How did you find me? A Breakdown (and Update) on How States Summon Jurors

When you recieve a jury summons in the mail, you may find yourself wondering how you were found.

States use a number of lists that they maintain to create a jury wheel, or a master jury list. The goal of this list is to include as many residents of the state as possible to ensure that juries are comprised of a "fair cross section of the community."

One of the most standard lists used to create this master list is the list of registered voters. A number of states use this list alone. Those states include:

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.

A few states limit their master list beyond the list of registered voters. Wisconsin's jury wheel is comprised only of residents who actually voted, and Florida uses either the list of registered voters or people who actually voted, whichever is available in that district.

Pennsylvania requires its districts to at least use its list of registered voters, but it allows its districts to add to their wheel using other available lists of residents.

A number of states expand upon the list of registered voters by including people who have a drivers license. Those states include:

Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, and Vermont.

To capture more residents, some states create a master list using the list of registered voters, people with a drivers license, and anyone with a state-issued personal identification card. These states include:

Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Rhode Island, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming.

Kentucky's new bill would add it to this list of states, but even prior to this bill, Kentucky also included residents who filed an individual tax return. California's new bill would join Kentucky in including all taxpayers in its master list. Michigan similarly includes residents holding a drivers license or state identification card along with people who have filed state income taxes.

A few states have come up with innovative ways to ensure diverse jury pools. Massachusetts maintains a municipal resident list, which acts as its master list. Maine's master list consists of licensed drivers, people with a Maine ID card, and anyone who has asked to be eligible for jury service. Nevada's master list consists of licensed drivers and state ID card holders, customers of Nevada Energy, Nevada voter rolls, and the Nevada Department of Employment, Training, and Rehabilitation. New Jersey uses registered voters, licensed drivers, filers of state gross income tax returns, and filers of Homestead rebate application forms.

With so many ways to gather a district's population for jury duty, why do so many states go through the effort to combine these lists, rather than use one list, like the states that rely only upon voter registration lists? It all ties back to the importance of accurately representing the state's population to ensure that those on trial get tried by a jury of their peers.

While it is easier for states to rely on their lists of registered voters for their jury summons, this typically will leave out an important sector of the population, as voter turnout is highly correlated with a higher socioeconomic status.

Including the list of residents with driver’s licenses will expand that list, but still, driver’s licenses often carry a fee. It was for that reason that Kentucky pushed to include the list of residents holding personal identification cards, as Kentucky’s personal identification cards are provided cost-free to individuals, whereas drivers licenses carry a $30 fee to obtain that form of identification.

These new bills in California and Kentucky demonstrate that states are recognizing the importance of creating a diverse jury pool that accurately reflects the state's population. Also, it makes it harder to avoid getting summoned to jury duty.