District Clerk Chris Daniel notes that many people do not get paid when they take off work to serve on jury duty, and that therefore they generally choose to ignore their summonses.
District Clerk Chris Daniel
During the upcoming session, the state Legislature can address this issue and ensure that jury pools include a true cross-section of county residents by passing a law allowing businesses that pay workers during jury service to receive a discount on the state business margins tax.
State law prohibits companies from firing workers who are absent due to jury service. But it does not require employers to pay workers – only five states impose such a requirement.
But there are ways for government, without being intrusive, to provide businesses with incentives to pay workers absent because of jury service. Lawmakers will consider passing House Bill 433, which would allow employers to claim a 15 percent discount when calculating their state margins taxes if they pay workers who are out for jury service.
This law would have far-reaching benefits:
- More people, including low-wage employees, would appear for jury service.
- The public likely would have increased confidence in the judicial system knowing that a more representative cross-section of society was serving on juries.
- Taxpayers would save money because the District Clerk’s Office would mail tens of thousands fewer jury notices.
- With more people appearing for jury service, residents would be called to serve less often.
Here’s HB433, authored by Daniel’s co-writer, Rep. Debbie Riddle. If I’m reading the text of the bill correctly, a company can apply for the credit for each day on which an employee served jury duty if the employee was paid for that day. The bill directs the Comptroller to come up with rules for how this will be implemented, so it’s a little hard to fully evaluate this. My first thought is that there ought to be some limitation on what kind of company can apply for this credit, lest big businesses that have routinely paid their salaried employees when they do jury service apply for the credits. It’ll be interesting to see what the fiscal note is for this as well. Beyond that, it seems like a reasonable idea to solve a legitimate problem, but more details are needed before I can say with any confidence whether this is a good and workable solution or not.
For those who want a different perspective on jury service, there is a new book out “Why Jury Duty Matters: A Citizen’s Guide to Constitutional Action.” It is the first book written for jurors on jury service. It argues for considering jury duty “constitution duty” and makes a patriotic pitch to participate in the process.
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