Last week I had to show up at the local court house for my jury duty summons. 15 out of 80 people would be selected to serve, suggesting that any individual had an 18.75% chance of being selected to sit as a juror on a trial. Those odds being what they are, I fully expected to be sent home by lunch time.
Instead, I watched those odds slowly increase and found myself empaneled on a trial. After five days, I had $100 in gross compensation, minus $35.50 in incurred expenses, for a net of $64.50 in taxable income. While I found it rewarding to complete my civic duty, this experience also got me thinking about how the unfair economics of jury duty contributes to an implicit bias among jurors selected to sit on a trial. Two main factors are at play here.
Employer compensation
Currently only eight US states have laws requiring employers to pay employees for at least some portion of jury duty. Those states are Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, and Tennessee.
In Massachusetts for example, employers are required to pay employees their regular wages for the first three days of juror service. After that, state compensation rates take over, unless one’s employer offers leave benefits for jury duty above and beyond those required by state law.
According to a BLS survey from March 2021 (see Table 33), 57% of US civilian workers were provided paid jury duty leave by their employers.
State compensation
Among US states, jury duty pay ranges from a low of $5 per day in Mississippi and New Jersey, to a high of $50 per day in Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, and South Dakota according to JuryDuty101. Some states reimburse for expenses incurred such as mileage, tolls, and parking, whereas others do not.
Clearly, these rates of compensation are subpar to say the least. An eight hour workday at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour results in $58. All states are compensating jurors at less than the rate of minimum wage.
My financial experience as a Massachusetts juror
Thankfully my employer provides paid jury duty leave for the duration of service.
Massachusetts provides no reimbursement for expenses, so I did have to pay out of pocket for parking in the city that I was summoned to.
Since compensation at the state rate of $50 per day kicks in on day four in Massachusetts, the worst case scenario financially would have been if the trial lasted 3 days. I would have paid $30 out of pocket for parking, essentially costing me money beyond what I would have otherwise spent those days to attend jury duty.
For days four and five I received a total of $100 in juror pay. I paid $35.50 total in parking fees (the garage ticketing system was broken on my final day, giving me a freebie) for a net of $64.50 in taxable income. My commute was about the same to the court house as to my job, so I didn’t count mileage.
These factors combine into an economic pressure which creates biased juries
If my job did not provide paid jury duty leave beyond the state-required three days, netting $64.50 in gross pay for the fourth and fifth days of jury service — an average of $32.25 per day — is clearly untenable as far as that being a living wage. Any employed person who can pick up at least an eight hour shift at the federal minimum wage can make more money at work than they could at jury duty in every state.
There is a financial incentive for anybody whose employer does not provide paid jury duty leave to try and get out of it. However, the consequences of being empaneled as a juror for people earning lower incomes and those living paycheck-to-paycheck are especially pronounced.
Going back to the BLS survey on employee benefits that I cited earlier, the fact that 57% of US civilian workers were provided paid jury duty leave by their employers is not granular enough to demonstrate this. There is a remarkably clear positive correlation between those who earn higher wages and the likelihood of working for an employer that offers paid jury duty leave:
| Average Wage Within the Following Categories | Percent of Workers Receiving Paid Jury Duty Leave |
|---|---|
| Lowest 10% | 21% |
| Lowest 25% | 30% |
| Second 25% | 57% |
| Third 25% | 66% |
| Highest 25% | 80% |
| Highest 10% | 83% |
Source: BLS (see Table 33)
Ergo, in most cases, juries likely do not represent a cross-section of the community as they are intended to. Those in lower income strata are the most likely to lose income by being empaneled as a juror, and I suspect it’s not controversial to speculate that they would be the most likely to attempt to get out of it. Who can blame them? Nobody wants to take home less money than they expected to that month.
During voir dire, the preliminary questioning of the jurors, pretty much nobody raised their hands for the line of questioning related to conflicts of interest such as knowing the plaintiff, defendant, or their lawyers. However, when asked if anybody had any other reason for why they should be excused from the jury, about half of the pool raised their hands.
I didn’t get to hear their individual reasons so I’m not sure how many were claiming financial hardship versus other reasons. That particular judge didn’t seem interested in keeping any jurors who didn’t want to be there though, so in the end our jury consisted of the first eight people that didn’t try to get out of serving. There were a couple retired people, but everyone else had some sort of office job that offered paid jury duty leave.
I’m sure there are several implications and outcomes from juries having an economic pressure to bias towards selecting for higher income individuals. Since this does not meet the stated intent of juries, it should be examined and rectified.
One of the simplest and most obvious ways to fix this is to make it so serving on a jury is not an economic disincentive. If all jurors were guaranteed their normal work pay plus reimbursement of any additional expenses they incurred to get to the court house for the duration of however long their service might be, that would go a long way towards creating juries which are more representative cross-sections of their communities.