LIHU’E – On July 31, the Hawai`i State Judiciary mailed juror questionnaires to 194,000 residents of Hawai`i, including 17,000 potential jurors on Kaua`i. Those who received questionnaires must complete and return them to the Jury Pool Office in Honolulu. An
LIHU’E – On July 31, the Hawai`i State Judiciary mailed juror questionnaires to
194,000 residents of Hawai`i, including 17,000 potential jurors on
Kaua`i.
Those who received questionnaires must complete and return them to
the Jury Pool Office in Honolulu. An addressed return envelope was included
with the jury questionnaires.
Failure to respond may lead to being fined
for contempt of court.
The questionnaires will be used to select eligible
jurors for the coming year.
Those who received questionnaires were randomly
selected from driver’s license, voter registration and state income tax
lists.
To be eligible for jury duty, one must be at least 18 years old, a
United States citizen, a resident of Hawai`i and be able to read and comprehend
English.
Freida Baker of the Jury Pool office on Oahu said convicted felons
also cannot serve as jurors even after they’ve served their time.
She said
a private firm on Oahu was hired to go through the forms and disqualify any
folks who weren’t qualified.
In addition to those who aren’t qualified,
Baker said quite a few exemptions for job-related reasons are claimed.
Professions that can be automatically exempted from jury duty in Hawai`i
include judges, state department heads, attorneys, ministers, priests, police
officers, doctors and dentists.
Also eligible to excluded is anyone who has
served in the previous year as a juror in a Hawai`i state court, or as a juror
in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawai`i, within one year of
filling out the juror qualification form.
“We’ve been trying to do away
with exemptions for quite a while, but we’ve been unable to get our Legislature
to do that,” Baker said.
“We do get a cross section of the community,
though” as jurors, Baker added. “Although many of those who can claim
exemptions do, we do get a few who want to serve. We’ve had a few judges and
attorneys who did serve.”
Requests to be excused due to personal hardship
will be considered only at the time a prospective juror is summoned.
Steven
Okihare, court administrator for Kaua`i’s Fifth Circuit Court, said 6,962
jurors qualified this year and didn’t seek exemption (out of approximately
17,000 forms sent out).
In 1999, according to Okihare, 6,800 jurors
qualified out of about 17,000 sent questionnaires.
Okihare agreed that
despite exemptions, Hawaii’s juries are “balanced enough, even though
everything is random.”
Additional information the jury pool office at (808)
539-4360.
Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext.
252) and [dwilken@pulitzer.net]
