The legal industry has always been criticized for
being archaic. For example, I have yet encountered a satisfied customer of the
notorious PACER system.[1] While
holding onto legal traditions is probably a good thing, holding onto
technological heritage is definitely not.
Similarly, when we really examine
the most common complaints regarding jury duty, we can see most of them are due
to the gap between modern day expectations and outdated legal system
technology. In other words, simple technological solutions can likely, and
drastically, improve a juror’s experience. Just drawing from personal
experience, last time my husband was summoned for jury duty, he had to wait on
the phone for an hour before the court clerk told him that his service is no
longer needed. My husband, being an IT engineer, was astonished that this
system is not automated yet (while I am apparently accustomed to the idea that
a good portion of our justice system is twenty years behind the current trend).
Living in a densely-populated area of Dallas, my condo complex receives a
puzzling amount of misdirected jury summons in our mailboxes. On the other
hand, when I interviewed a former juror about his two experiences serving on
the jury, he keenly noted on how a small change - an online juror questionnaire
that he filled out beforehand on his second time serving on a jury - made a
huge difference in streamlining the process and improving his experience.
Indeed, from reaching potential jurors in the jury pool to voir dire, a lot of
common problems can be solved.
Indeed, modern day solutions can
be easily implemented to make the process more enjoyable. It takes forever to
get someone on the phone to confirm jury duty? Automate the jury duty
confirmation system. Difficult to find parking near the downtown courthouse? We
can have apps that show how many parking spaces are open in the parking garage,
or even reimburse jurors for their uses of ride-sharing services such as Uber
and Lyft. Jurors waste a lot of time waiting in a general juror room? Introduce
an online queuing system. Jury pool has outdated information? Yes, the beauty
of the digital age is that we can manage databases much more efficiently now -
just update information more frequently! Some engineers even suggest that the
entire concept of jury duty—from voir dire to the per diem payment—can be
managed with block chain.[2] While that
seems like an overkill in 2020, maybe it would be more easily implemented in
2040. After all, we can always start with the baby steps that bring jury service
a bit on par with modern day technology.
Modern technology does not only help potential jurors,
it can also help out attorneys. In the recent ultra high-profile Harvey
Weinstein trial, voir dire took more than two weeks and over 600 residents in
New York were screened.[3] Weinstein
reportedly hired some very high profile jury consultants that charge more than
$10,000 a day. In a Vanity Fair interview, some comparable jury consultants
claim that “for all prospective jurors, we have everything: where they live,
their home value, political affiliation, sometimes things they’ve bought.”[4]
In a different interview, some other jury consultants suggested that with the
modern age and everybody’s engagement with social media, big data—especially
when it comes to vetting potential jurors’ social media activities—should come
into play during voir dire.[5] Now, I invite
you all to push the envelope further – what if artificial intelligence, instead
of human beings, was introduced to analyze this massive amount of disparate
data, predict the decision-making of potential jurors, and help attorneys to
fine-tune their arguments?
[1] Techdirt, PACER, Or Your First
Amendment Right To Go F**k Yourself For $0.10/Page, Above
the Law (Mar. 33, 2019, 12:14 pm), https://abovethelaw.com/2019/03/pacer-or-your-first-amendment-right-to-go-fk-yourself-for-0-10-page/?rf=1.
[2] Dante
Disparte, Jury Duty – A Blockchain Solution Looking for a Problem, Forbes (Apr. 30, 2019, 9:06 am), https://www.forbes.com/sites/dantedisparte/2019/04/30/jury-duty-a-blockchain-solution-looking-for-a-problem/#770a5fad4709.
[3] Maureen O’Connor,
Inside the Surreal Search for 12 Impartial Weinstein Jurors, Vanity Fair (Jan. 17, 2019), https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/01/weinstein-trial-jurors-selection.
[5] Tom Hals, Harvey
Weinstein jury selection: bias, big data and “likes”, Reuters (Jan. 16, 2019, 5:11 am),
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