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Panel backs adding public-assistance rolls to master jury list; confidentiality requirement included
Summary
Senate Bill 2054 would expand lists used to create master jury pools to include unemployment and certain public-assistance recipients, and make those lists confidential; the Judiciary Committee gave the measure a due-pass recommendation.
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted to give Senate Bill 2054 a due-pass recommendation after hearing testimony that the bill would broaden and confidentialize the master jury list to capture a more representative cross section of residents.
Sarah Behrens, a staff attorney with the State Court Administrator’s Office, told the committee the bill would add people receiving unemployment compensation and those receiving public assistance and child-care assistance to lists that are used to compile the master jury list. “These lists do capture a large portion of the population, but it still misses a good number of people,” Behrens said, noting not everyone has a driver’s license, pays utilities or owns property.
Behrens said the office worked with the Department of Health and Human Services to draft the bill and that because the public-assistance lists are confidential the bill designates the master jury list as confidential so the courts may use those records while preserving privacy. She added that the portion of the statute relying on DHHS lists will take effect only after DHHS amends its state plan and notifies legislative management.
Travis Fink, executive director of the North Dakota Commission on Legal Counsel for Indigence, supported the bill and said a more diverse jury pool “promote[s] more confidence within the legal process,” describing common reasons some residents are not captured by current lists.
Motion and vote: Senator Lueck moved a due-pass recommendation on SB 2054; the motion was seconded and the committee voted in favor on roll call. The committee designated a senator to carry the bill forward.
The bill’s authors said the change aims to better fulfill the statutory requirement in Section 2709.101 that jury selection draw from a cross section of the population; Section 2709.105 currently lists the sources that make up the master jury list.
