Montana lawmakers hear bill to modernize jury notices, clerks and sheriffs cite heavy operational burden

Representative Amy Regier, sponsor of House Bill 194, told the House Judiciary Committee that the state’s statutes governing jury notice and summonses are outdated and create inconsistent application across counties. “The process by which jurors are notified and summoned is extremely outdated and has created inconsistencies in application and imposes a significant burden on our local state court systems,” Regier said as she opened the hearing.

The bill would update language in Montana’s jury-selection statutes to give clerks of the district court flexibility about when to provide juror questionnaires (either with the annual notice or with the summons for an individual trial) and to change some timing and service obligations that currently require sheriffs to attempt personal service for nonresponding potential jurors.

Why it matters: Proponents said the change would reduce hours deputies spend serving notices, lower county costs and reduce technical grounds for post-conviction challenges. Opponents and defense counsel warned the bill as written could limit defendants’ remedies when clerks or sheriffs fail to follow statutory requirements, a concern tied to Montana Supreme Court precedent requiring substantial compliance with jury statutes.

Proponents’ evidence: Amy McGhee, who identified herself as a clerk of district court representing large counties, detailed operational scale in Missoula County and why the statute is impractical. “In Missoula District Court alone I give notice to 16,500 names,” McGhee said. She described producing roughly 90 individual jury panels a year with an average of 150 people per panel and said clerks currently must ask jurors to return a qualification questionnaire after an annual notice — a step clerks say is confusing and inefficient. McGhee said HB 194 would permit clerks to include the questionnaire with the annual notice or to defer it to the time of the summons, and that only a failure to respond to a summons — not to an earlier notice — would trigger certification to the sheriff.

Smaller counties, deputies and prosecutors echoed the operational strain. Cynthia Neste, Sanders County clerk of district court, said her office pulls about 800 jurors in a term year and frequently sees 400–500 nonresponses; with only one or two deputies on duty, serving those nonrespondents is time-consuming. “If I only had to send the sheriff out to find them at the time of summons when they are actually required to report for a jury, he might only have to go look for 5 or 10 people versus 4 or 500 people,” Neste said.

Scott Van Dyke, undersheriff in Cascade County, described deputies being removed from patrol assignments to serve thousands of notices. “I got notice that I had to serve 4,400 jury notices on these individuals. So I’m pulling one deputy out or multiple deputies just to get this done in time,” he said, adding that the same people are sometimes served twice — once for the annual notice and again for the summons.

Legal and appellate concerns: Mardell Ployhar, from the attorney general’s Appellate Services Bureau, said the department discovered many counties were not personally serving jurors as the statute appeared to require. She warned that the practical impossibility of perfect compliance invites legal challenges and could jeopardize convictions. “When I learned in the fall of 2023 that there were problems throughout the state with the notification of jurors, it turns out, in many counties, maybe most counties ... the jurors who did not return their questionnaire were not actually being personally served by sheriff's offices,” Ployhar said. She said part of the bill’s purpose is to narrow the window for raising untimely challenges to jury formation so problems can be addressed before trial.

Opposition and due-process concerns: Claire Letto, a managing attorney for the Office of the Public Defender appearing in a personal capacity, said she supports many parts of the bill but asked the committee to preserve a remedy when the statutes are not substantially complied with. She cited State v. Lemire and Montana case law that treats substantial compliance as the controlling standard in criminal jury statutes. “If we deny a defendant a remedy when there is not substantial compliance with the statute, then we're not fulfilling the mission of the constitution,” Letto said.

Committee questions and clarifications: Committee members pressed witnesses on timelines and operational detail. McGhee said Missoula’s process typically begins about six to eight weeks before trial and that clerks certify failures to respond about three weeks before trial so sheriffs can attempt service. Deputies described a documentary call-for-service trail they open each time they attempt personal service; Van Dyke said social media posts from sheriff’s offices often produce faster responses than other methods.

Representatives also asked whether public defenders have the resources to investigate jury-selection issues within the statute’s five-day pretrial challenge deadline; Letto and other defenders said the deadline is often impractical for resource-limited defenders and asked for language that preserves remedies for substantial noncompliance while still giving clerks needed operational flexibility.

Where it stands: The hearing closed after sponsor remarks asking for a “do pass.” No committee vote on the bill was recorded in this transcript segment.

Ending: Supporters said HB 194 would modernize notification, reduce deputies’ service burdens and cut costs; opponents asked for amendments to preserve judicial remedies when statutory steps are not substantially followed. The committee will decide next steps after members weigh the operational benefits against the due-process concerns raised in testimony.