King County jury duty summons more than doubling this year

If you have a few friends who’ve gotten the famous envelope in the mail, and feel like more people than usual are getting summoned to the King County Courthouse for jury duty, you’re not wrong — court proceedings are ramping back up.

Evidence that the community is starting to ease back to a new normal ahead of the June 30 reopening can be seen everywhere from restaurants to stores to schools, and the courthouse is no exception.

“As the various health measures are being somewhat relaxed, as the pandemic abates, we’re trying more cases,” said King County Superior Court Presiding Judge Jim Rogers, adding, “We are sending out a ton of summons right now in all of our cases.”

In fact, the court is set to send out 425,000 jury duty notices this year. That’s more than double the last pre-pandemic year, 2019, when just 188,000 were sent.

Sadly, another reason for the increase in jury duty summons and cases is a rise in violent crime in the Seattle area.

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“The violent crime rate skyrocketed during the pandemic — the homicide rate went way up,” Judge Rogers said.

He is not sure of the reasons behind that trend, but he is fairly confident that it is not connected to the financial devastation caused by the pandemic.

“During the recession in 2008 and ’09, the crime rate continued to go down, even though tons of people lost their jobs,” Rogers pointed out.

He suggested that perhaps the lack of social connection during COVID-19 has played a role, though he noted there is no way to be sure until the phenomenon is studied more in the coming years.

What Rogers is sure of, however, is that all of those violent crimes have led to a long queue of trials.

“We have a giant criminal backlog that is so long, that if we don’t get additional judges through the Biden COVID funding, we will take almost a decade to get them tried,” he said.

And because criminal trials must be held in person, not as many have been able to take place during the pandemic restrictions.

“We now have double to triple, depending on the kind of case, of violent cases set for trial [as 2019],” Rogers said.

Also contributing to the increase in jury duty summons is the fact that larger jury pools are being summoned. That’s due to a COVID measure that will be kept on even after the pandemic is over — selecting jurors via Zoom, instead of having people come into the courthouse.

That means the only part you have to appear in person for is the actual trial, if you are selected — and even then, the trial you are chosen for may also be conducted remotely. While criminal trials have been conducted in person the entire time, many civil trials are still being done virtually.

In general, Judge Rogers is not bringing down the gavel on courtroom Zoom, but rather embracing the possibilities brought on by technology.

“Zoom voir dire has made that better for our jurors, a better experience,” Rogers said. “Our diversity of our jurors has greatly increased.”

In fact, during the pandemic, the King County Superior Court has conducted more remote trials than any other jurisdiction in the nation.

Rogers noted that while there have been some problems with virtual trials across the country — notably one video that went viral in which a lawyer appeared in a cat filter by accident — the professionalism of the court can remain as long as the judge enforces it. As long as standards are maintained and cat filters are left off, Zoom trials can be a great way to bring in more people from near and far, whether jurors or witnesses, at high convenience and low cost.

“You have to make justice as accessible as possible — and that often means making it as affordable as possible,” Rogers emphasized.

If you are called as a juror on an in-person trial, you will notice some things looking different at the courthouse for social distancing purposes. Everyone is required to wear masks during proceedings, and you won’t see any spectators in the courtroom. The jury sits distanced, in the seats where the spectators used to sit, while attorneys now sit inside the jury box.

If you or someone you live with is at risk for COVID-19, you may be able to be excused from jury duty. It is not yet possible for some jurors on a trial to be remote while others are in person, though Rogers said it is conceivable that we could see this in the future.

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