Beginning in September, trial juries in Chatham County will better reflect the community in real time under a new state law, Chatham County Superior Court Clerk Dan Massey said Thursday.
Grand juries will follow in December, he said.
Under legislation completed in the last session of the General Assembly, all 159 counties in the state will move to replace the traditional “forced balancing” of jury lists to reflect demographic changes based on the last census with a system that annually adjusts to reflect the current local communities.
Georgia was the last state nationally to abandon the “forced balancing” system that conformed the jury list to match the county population in race and sex.
More importantly, the grand jury lists, which traditionally have been hand-selected by a five-member jury commission from the trial jury list as the “most intelligent, upstanding citizens in the community,” will be scrapped to include all of those on the petit, or trial, jury list, Massey said.
“To me, it’s a civil rights issue,” Massey said. “It will ensure that every citizen of the county has equal access to the courts and will be judged by a jury or his or her peers.”
In Chatham County, the superior court is divided into four, three-month terms — March, June, September and December — with each term beginning on the first Monday of that month. The current grand jury is the June term.
Juries are used in superior, state and probate courts.
Chatham County Superior Court Chief Judge Michael Karpf said the new rules will give more people a chance to participate in the process but also will spread the burden of jury service more evenly.
“The pool will be larger,” Karpf said, and will ensure that all segments of the community will serve.
In the grand jury selection, the new law will probably reduce the possibility of the same people serving multiple times, he said.
Those listed in the jury pool will be taken from driver’s license database of some 12 million statewide and local voters registration lists, Massey said.
Those names will be adjusted against the secretary of state’s list of convicted felons and vital records to identify deaths, then certified by the Council of Superior Court Clerks, Massey said.
In Chatham County, the jury pool lists about 260,000 people against the county’s 265,000 residents, which includes duplications of people who should not be listed.
It also may include elected officials or those who have served in office in the last two years and should not be included, Massey said. Convicted felons and those deemed to be mentally incompetent should also be excluded.
The Chatham County grand jury pool includes about 2,400 names of whom about 100 actually serve each year. Each grand jury includes 23 people.
Some refinements remain to be worked out, Massey said. For example, people
70 and older who can request exemptions from jury duty will have to contact Jury Clerk Patricia Morelli’s office at 912-652-7170 to re-assert their exemptions, Massey said.
Massey, clerk since 2005, said the changes to the jury system started about eight years ago with a Georgia Supreme Court initiative. Legislation passed in 2010 was amended this session to handle implementation, Massey said.
“I think it is just absolutely huge and fantastic legislation,” Massey said, adding he considered it the most significant legislation he has been involved in since he entered the court system in 1976.