MINUTES OF THE meeting
of the
ASSEMBLY Committee on Judiciary
Seventy-Second Session
April 17, 2003
The Committee on Judiciarywas called to order at 8:00 a.m., on Thursday, April 17, 2003. Chairman Bernie Anderson presided in Room 3138 of the Legislative Building, Carson City, Nevada, and, via simultaneous videoconference, in Room 4401 of the Grant Sawyer State Office Building, Las Vegas, Nevada. Exhibit A is the Agenda. Exhibit B is the Guest List. All exhibits are available and on file at the Research Library of the Legislative Counsel Bureau.
Note: These minutes are compiled in the modified verbatim style. Bracketed material indicates language used to clarify and further describe testimony. Actions of the committee are presented in the traditional legislative style.
COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:
Mr. Bernie Anderson, Chairman
Mr. John Oceguera, Vice Chairman
Mrs. Sharron Angle
Mr. David Brown
Ms. Barbara Buckley
Mr. John C. Carpenter
Mr. Jerry D. Claborn
Mr. Marcus Conklin
Mr. Jason Geddes
Mr. Don Gustavson
Mr. William Horne
Mr. Garn Mabey
Mr. Harry Mortenson
Ms. Genie Ohrenschall
Mr. Rod Sherer
COMMITTEE MEMBERS ABSENT:
Mr. William Horne (excused)
STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:
Allison Combs, Committee Policy Analyst
Risa B. Lang, Committee Counsel
Sabina Bye, Committee Secretary
OTHERS PRESENT:
Chief Justice Deborah A. Agosti, Nevada Supreme Court
Justice Robert E. Rose, Nevada Supreme Court
Justice Mark Gibbons, Nevada Supreme Court
John P. Desmond, Attorney at Law, Jones Vargas, Reno, Nevada
Dan Musgrove, Director, Intergovernmental Relations, Office of the County Manager, Clark County
Wanda Lopshire, Jury Commissioner, Second Judicial District Court, Washoe County
C. Rocky Finseth II, Government Affairs, Carrara Nevada, Greater Las Vegas Association Realtors
James Jackson, Nevada Attorneys for Criminal Justice
Chairman Anderson:
[The Chair reminded the Committee members and those present in the audience of the Standing Rules and appropriate meeting etiquette.]
There are 13 members present; a quorum is present. Mr. Horne is excused.
We have a couple of procedural things that we need to do here. Distributed on the Floor and to you this morning is a copy of a Concur or Not Concur amendment that has come from the Senate (Assembly Bill 53 2nd Reprint). It is the Chair’s intent not to concur. Therefore, I am going to recommend to the Speaker that we appoint a subcommittee. This is on Mr. Oceguera’s bill. Mr. Oceguera, do you want to make any comments?
Vice Chairman Oceguera:
I believe the Senate did not get what we were trying to do here and gutted this bill. Basically, it was regarding assault or battery on a health care worker and increasing the penalty. They have made it “only if it is an emergency situation.” I think that we can come to some type of resolution if we explain it more clearly.
Chairman Anderson:
It is my intention to have Mr. Oceguera be on the first and Mr. Sherer and Mr. Claborn make up the subcommittee that would represent us. I will also make that request to the Speaker and see whom he wishes to appoint.
Assemblywoman Buckley:
I am just trying to see where they did what you said they did. Is that on this amendment; were they tinkering with the definition or its scope?
Vice Chairman Oceguera:
It’s both. In “c” they narrowed the scope to rendering emergency care, and then the laundry list of professionals, which we can argue one way or the other, is now deleted to these seven health care workers instead of the long list that we had.
Chairman Anderson:
Let’s take a look at A.J.R. 12 of the Seventy-first Legislative Session, which we haven’t actually had an official hearing on as yet. We need to go through a bit of formality here. Let me open the hearing on A.J.R. 12 of the Seventy-first Legislative Session.
Assembly Joint Resolution 12 of the 71st Session: Proposes to amend Nevada Constitution to establish intermediate appellate court and revise term of person appointed to fill vacancy in office for supreme court justice, court of appeals judge or district judge. (BDR C-523)
Chief Justice Deborah A. Agosti, Nevada Supreme Court:
[Introduces herself.] As I understand it, A.J.R. 12 of the Seventy-first Legislative Session is last session’s first-time request for an intermediate appellate court. Forgive me if I don’t have the proper terminology, the legislative language, for making this go away, but that is what we are asking you to do. In the meantime, S.J.R. 5 was introduced in this session and has passed both houses and gone to enrollment. This bill was introduced last session for the first-time. It is a constitutional amendment so it would require two successive passes of the Legislature before it can go to a vote of the people.
Rather than request it again this session, we have started over with S.J.R. 5, which amends the language of A.J.R. 12 of the Seventy-first Legislative Session from a mandatory provision requiring an intermediate appellate court to a discretionary provision authorizing the Legislature to create an intermediate appellate court, which we sincerely hope will be more palatable to the voters of the state. I do want to thank all of you. The Legislature has been very patient with the Supreme Court in our pursuit of the intermediate appellate court and very supportive of our efforts to amend the Constitution to provide for it.
Chairman Anderson:
Justice Agosti is asking us to Indefinitely Postpone A.J.R. 12 of the Seventy-first Legislative Session. I am asking the Committee so we can get this off my board and send it back to the Chief Clerk’s Desk. The Constitutional Bylaws Committee has already processed a second piece of legislation and has already moved through the process, so we are not endangering the question.
Assemblywoman Buckley moved to Indefinitely Postpone A.J.R. 12 of the Seventy-First LEGISLATIVE SESSION.
Assemblyman Mortenson seconded the motion.
The motion carried. (Mr. Horne and Mr. Conklin were not present for the vote.)
Let’s turn to Senate Bill 73.
Senate Bill 73 (1st Reprint): Makes various changes to provisions governing juries. (BDR 1-934)
Chief Justice Agosti:
With me this morning are Justices Bob Rose and Mark Gibbons. I would also like to introduce others who are present. John Desmond, an attorney in Washoe County; Betsy Gonzalez, an attorney from Clark County; and Wanda Lopshire, the Jury Commissioner for Washoe County. These individuals share with the three here today the experience of having served on the Jury Improvement Commission. This Commission was convened at the request of Justice Bob Rose; it was his inspiration and desire to put together a commission through the Supreme Court to examine current jury practices throughout the state and recommend changes and improvements to those current practices. I was very privileged to cochair that Commission with Justice Bob Rose. Justice Gibbons sat as a district court member of the Commission; he was on the district court at the time. We convened a Commission that included representatives from throughout the state from the rural and urban areas and spent quite a bit of time in the process. Time permitting, John Desmond will speak to you briefly about the kind of work the Commission did and the testimony that we heard throughout the state.
The fruits of the Jury Improvement Commission show in two places. In one place, there are now proposals before the Supreme Court to amend our rules in order to make changes, within our domain, to the jury practices in this state. Pertinent to your business is S.B. 73, which is within the legislative domain to make changes that are the recommendations, not just of members of the Supreme Court who sit before you, but the members of the Jury Improvement Commission itself.
Having made those introductory remarks, I would like to turn further remarks over to Justice Rose and Justice Gibbons, who can briefly describe for you what it is we are requesting in S.B. 73.
Justice Robert Rose, Nevada Supreme Court:
[Introduced himself.] I cochaired the Jury Improvement Commission and asked that Justice Agosti chair this with me because of her extensive jury trial experience. I have found, over the last three or four years, she is an excellent writer and I think the product that we produced showed that I made an excellent choice.
The two subjects that I am going to talk to you about are the change in the mileage that perspective jurors will receive and jury fees. What we attempted to do was not to increase the amount of money, but to distribute it more equitably. We did not want to have fiscal impact, especially this year, by asking for more money, but we wanted to pay the money where we thought it was best earned and deserved, and that was to the jurors who actually served. We are not asking for a nickel from the state. We have a fiscal impact on this bill simply because it has modest impact that I will show is de minimis on a few counties. There will be great savings for Clark County and some savings for most other counties in the state. But a few counties, because of their structures, will possibly have a modest impact.
First of all, with regard to jury fees, we pay mileage to anyone summoned at 20 cents a mile, and we issue small checks to anyone who is summoned to serve on a jury or serves on a jury. We are recommending that mileage be paid only if someone has to travel 65 miles or more each way and no mileage be paid for the smaller distances. Part of your civic responsibility is to get to the courthouse and get back, unless you are traveling 65 miles or more. We would recommend that the pay, if you are getting mileage for more than 65 miles one way, would go from 20 cents to 36.5 cents—the same amount we pay for the state. The juror who travels a substantial amount will not only get travel mileage, but will get mileage at a higher rate. That basically is the mileage recommendation on S.B. 73.
The second recommendation substantially changes what we pay prospective jurors and [sitting] jurors. If you are summoned now to come in to be on jury duty or on a jury panel, you get $9 a day for every day you come to the courthouse until you are selected to be on a jury. When you are on a jury, you get $15 a day for the first five days, and then thereafter get $30 a day until the matter is convened. We are recommending there be no appearance fee, only jury fees. The jury fees will only be paid when you are actually sworn in on a jury or have been at the courthouse your third day. If you are not picked on a jury, you are just in the pool of prospective jurors going through voir dire or waiting to be called and you will not get paid until the third day. You will not get the $9 and the $9; you will get the $40 on the third day. But once you are sworn in on a jury, you will get $40 a day. If you are sworn the first day, you would get the $40 on the first day or the third day, whichever comes first. The appearance fees and most of the mileage fee checks are eliminated.
[Justice Robert Rose continued.] What is the combined impact of this? On number 38 of our Jury Improvement Commission report that we issued in early November, we list it. It has some impact to some counties. Washoe County is $14,000, Carson City is $5,000, Elko County is $9,000, Nye County is $2,300. Two things are not factored into those figures. First, when it is a civil trial, the parties reimburse the county for the jury fees expended. That was not put in this; it just showed the total impact of paid-out jury fees. There is substantial reimbursement that comes back to the county in civil jury trials because the party that asks for the jury pays for the jury.
Second, the administrative savings is in not issuing small checks. We asked Washoe County and Wanda Lopshire, the Jury Commissioner for Washoe County, what it would cost to issue these checks. They have said the administrative cost is $5.84 to issue a check. We ran that by Clark County to see what they thought. They thought the figure was probably low because you have people who have to input the information, cut the checks, and some to deliver the checks to the jurors, or prospective jurors, who were not called. When you factor all that in, the cost of savings in the reimbursement impacts only—in a worst-case scenario—three counties. First would be Carson City, $2,200; Elko County is $2,500; and Humboldt County is $425. In a worst-case scenario, that would be the impact to those three counties.
Second, the county has within its ability to make sure that possible deficit does not occur. If you eliminate four days of jury trial a year, you will save $2,000. The impact on Elko and Carson City could be eliminated by just speeding up jury trials and saving four days of jury trials during the entire year.
The third thing to keep in mind is, when you compare a few counties might have to pay a thousand or two more, if the worst-case scenario occurs you are saving between $400,000 and $500,000 for all the other counties because Clark County reaps greater savings. Clark and Washoe County representatives think this is a good plan and the fiscal impact will be positive, not negative. That is what we have proposed for mileage and for restructuring jury fees.
Chairman Anderson:
I noticed that in the first part, you have eliminated judges, justices of the peace, attorneys at law, county clerks, recorders, locomotive engineers, firemen, and all those other parts of society that could get out of jury duty. The people who have been involved in the court, such as police officers and others who have a direct relationship to the court on a more frequent basis, would almost be precluded because the voir dire process would end up excusing those people anyway. Wouldn’t it be better to exclude them so you wouldn’t have to waste your time and paperwork in notifying them when they were only going to be excused?
Justice Rose:
Mr. Chairman, you have directed that question to me, but Justice Gibbons was going to talk about the exemptions. However, police officers certainly would be excused from most criminal cases, but there are civil cases that they are not disqualified from; I think they can serve on those juries and serve well.
Assemblyman Geddes:
Justice Rose, why the switch from the 60 to 65 on the mileage?
Justice Rose:
If you have to travel more than 65 miles one way, you can request the district court to put you up, to get lodging for that night. If it is more than 65 miles each way, you can request that, and we took the 65 miles because it was in the statute and the Legislature had already decided on 65 miles, so why put in another number?
Assemblyman Carpenter:
Do you have your calculations that you have done for Elko County, so I don’t get beat up too bad?
Justice Rose:
Yes, we do, and we also have a letter from your County Clerk, Winifred Smith, who positively endorses the switch in fees and feels like it is certainly a good idea to increase the fees. She was very positive about it. We have a letter dated March 4, 2003, where we ran it by her and she felt that if it was going to be an increase, it would be very modest. We have the figures, so we can provide them for you. We have been in contact with your county officials because that is where we got the raw data to extrapolate the conclusions that I have given you. We could lay it out for you so you could see it in a brief memo; we could get it out to you today.
Assemblyman Carpenter:
I think that would be helpful, thank you.
Chairman Anderson:
Was there a handout that we were all to receive, Justice Rose?
Justice Rose:
There was only our book and we sent that over weeks ago. When we factored in those civil trial reimbursements and cost savings, we have done that internally, but we could certainly provide that for you.
Justice Mark Gibbons, Nevada Supreme Court:
[Introduced himself.] I previously served as Chief Judge of the Eighth Judicial District Court. I am going to address the issue of the exemptions and I will address the questions that Chairman Anderson raised, plus the issue of frequency of service.
First of all, on the exemption issue, the Commission felt it would be best and have the most broad-based juries possible to recommend repealing all exemptions except for legislators in session and members of the Legislative Counsel Bureau while in session. Judges would serve; doctors would serve; police officers would serve, et cetera. In criminal cases, normally police officers would be exempt, although I have had jury trials where police officers or probation officers have served on the jury. It is up to the attorneys whether they wish to exercise preemptory challenges. Certainly in the civil cases, it is common to have police officers serve. If they are called for jury duty, they just may be sent to a civil case versus a criminal case.
An issue may come up regarding doctors, and I understand that doctors are busy; they may have surgery scheduled and different things when they are scheduled for jury duty. In Clark County, we have a new jury software system where we have an automatic continuance when you are summoned for jury duty for six months. You just call in and you get a six-month continuance. We have the software now in place. Also, by repealing this exemption, this in no way limits the discretion of the district court to exempt anybody from jury duty. For example, if a doctor were summoned in Washoe County and the doctor just couldn’t be there that week, the doctor could call the court and ask the court to excuse him/her for that particular time and then they would be re-summoned in the future. People who are busy, people who have other commitments can be exempted on a case-by-case basis by the district court. Again, we felt the automatic exemptions are somewhat arcane since we do have criminal and civil cases that most people can serve on regardless of their occupation.
Secondly, on the issue in Section 2, subsection 3 of the bill regarding frequency of service, this is new language. Basically, somebody would be called no more than once a year for jury duty. If you serve on a jury, you would be exempt until the following year. Clark County generally does around 18 months right now, just as a matter of practice. But, if you do serve on a jury here, you are exempted for one year.
I think this is important language because a lot of times you have people coming up with very marginal excuses why they don’t want to serve on a trial. I would tell them that if they are picked on a trial, they may have a three- to four-day trial. But, if they want to be excused, I would excuse them, and tell them they have to come back for a four-month construction defect case and the next judge may not excuse them. A lot of times we get people and motivate them to serve like that. Here, we have a specific statute saying if you do it, you are exempted for one year and that is it.
There is one exception I know of. In a smaller county, the jury pool may be so minimal that a person might have to serve more than once a year, so there is some discretion there. As a general rule, we have codified the procedure into this one-year time period, which I believe is good and fair for all potential jurors.
A lot of thought was put into this bill by the Commission, and we would urge the Assembly Committee on Judiciary to support these changes as well.
Chairman Anderson:
Maybe this question is better directed to the Jury Commissioner, but if you have a justice court, do they use the same jury commissioner for both?
Justice Gibbons:
I know Ms. Lopshire could probably address how it is done in Washoe County. In Clark County the answer is “yes.” There are very few jury trials in justice court and they are only on civil cases. When that happens, our district court jury commissioner provides the jury for the justice courts, and I think that is done in Henderson as well. We have made arrangements so the Henderson justices of the peace could have jurors available for those trials. I don’t know about Washoe County, and I think in most other counties the county clerk acts also as the ex-officio jury commissioner.
Chairman Anderson:
We just broadened the jury pool with a piece of legislation that’s going to allow ex-felons to serve. I guess it would be appropriate to let cops serve too.
Assemblywoman Buckley:
Everyone on the Committee received an e-mail (Exhibit D) and I thought I would just pose this question to you for the record, although you did touch on it briefly. There is a concern about prosecutors, law enforcement officers, district attorneys, and defense attorneys serving on a criminal case. They say while it may be a rare case, the possibility exists that a lawyer would have to use one of the limited number of challenges and then not have the challenge left to challenge another marginal potential juror, and they are concluding that we limit this because of this issue. Could you respond to that?
Justice Gibbons:
In the preemptory challenges, there are four challenges per side in most cases. In criminal cases where the potential penalty is up to life imprisonment, there are eight challenges per side. There are quite a few challenges. Before the preemptory challenge procedure starts, the judge usually goes through a thorough procedure to see if there are any reasons why prospective jurors cannot serve to make sure they are fair and impartial. Frankly, I think that initial phase of the trial would screen out any issues with the prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges. The judge would give them the opportunity to respond and if the judge doesn’t feel they could be fair and impartial for whatever reason, the judge would excuse them before the preemptory challenge phase even starts. I think that is more of a theoretical concern than a practical concern.
Justice Rose:
Ms. Buckley, the knife cuts both ways. You have defense attorneys, public defender employees, and, from what I am told, ex-felons going to be on the jury panel. Assuming they are passed for cause, the prosecutor may not think that they are the best people for his jury either. So while you may not, in a criminal case, want a police officer, who would probably be disqualified in a criminal case, by the same token, the public defender would also probably be disqualified for the same reasons on the other side. It would be a consideration for both parties, the defense and the prosecution. I think it would shake out evenly. As Justice Gibbons said, we do rather extensive examination into possible bias and prejudice, and sometimes police officers and people who have been in law enforcement are the toughest on the prosecution and hold the firmest to their responsibilities. It is hard to categorize people specifically.
Assemblyman Carpenter:
If I understand this right, if you are just summoned to possibly be on the jury and you live more than 65 miles away, you would get paid for just showing up, is that right?
Justice Rose:
At 65 miles, you would receive 20 cents a mile right now and you would receive a $9 appearance fee. Under the new schedule, you would get the mileage, but not the appearance fee, and the mileage would be calculated at 36.5 cents a mile. There would be no appearance fee of $9. We thought those were relatively insignificant. To shift that money over to people who really serve on these juries for one and two weeks—to give them the $40 a day—would be a better service by the state and the counties to those people summoned and serving.
Assemblyman Carpenter:
In rural areas and the counties around Elko, I guess Wells would be the only community that would be impacted to any degree. The other ones are either a lot closer or are far enough away that they would get paid.
Chairman Anderson:
Justice Rose, several businesses pay their employees who serve on jury duty and the employees reimburse or turn over the jury checks to their employers. I know they do that with the school district. In your investigation of the process and recommendation, did you take into consideration the businesses that carry out that kind of thing, since there will no longer be a dollar exchange? In some instances showing up means a loss if it is the kind of job that doesn’t pay while employees serve on jury duty, such as people who work on the railroad. They make trips; they get paid. If they don’t make a trip, they don’t get paid so they are out the dollar regardless.
Justice Rose:
We considered the payment by private companies, and there are a few. There are a few in private enterprise that do pay, and we certainly applaud that and encourage other businesses to do that. By the same token, most do not, and the employee who is serving and whose company does that, would not be exchanging a check for $9, he would just say, “Pay me my salary for the first few days.”
It would be a modest impact to some of those companies, but $9 is usually insignificant on the appearance fees.
Chairman Anderson:
I don’t believe it is a dollar exchange that the question is about; I think it is a question that there was a paperwork exchange. If you are still working for the county, it is the same bookkeeping system and so in reality it is merely an interoffice exchange.
Justice Rose:
We did not take that into account in our numbers and I don’t know if that would be of any real significance except the county is picking up that $40 instead of the $9.
Chairman Anderson:
I know with the railroad employees, with which I am somewhat familiar, if you miss the opportunity to go to work then you have lost substantial amounts of money. If you are not on the train, you have to wait for the next turn-up on the board, so you would be out of work for possibly six or seven days.
Vice Chairman Oceguera:
I am tossing Section 1 around in my head. First of all, I would like to congratulate you on another great commission. I actually read this report when I was interning for a district court judge. It was interesting to see the changes that you specified in the report were relevant to some of the huge problems I saw with the juries coming in and out. An interesting thing happened when one of our former colleagues, Judge Porter, was called for jury duty in Judge Cherry’s courtroom. That is the basis of my question. The Commission is recommending we take these occupations, or people, out. How do you change the culture, though? Each judge does it a little different. If I stood up when you asked, “Does anyone have any cause to not be here?” and I said, “I am an attorney.” How do you change that culture where they would not just automatically say you are going to leave? Do you see where I am going here?
Justice Gibbons:
Again, each judge is somewhat different and the judges do have discretion to excuse people, especially when they come down. But, I would think that when somebody says, “I am an attorney,” I would say, “So what?” The issue is whether they can be fair and impartial in the particular case, whether it is a judge, an attorney, or anybody else. I believe that is a standard. If they say they can’t be, I am going to find out why and probe that area. If they can be, they go into the pool. They may be subject to preemptory challenge, but they have been qualified for cause.
Vice Chairman Oceguera:
I guess my question would go to that exactly. I figure that is how you would answer, but maybe another judge might say that was a good enough reason. How do you change that so it is fair every time so all these people have to go to the challenges?
Justice Gibbons:
Mr. Oceguera, the district judges are having their meeting in Minden in a couple of weeks and I know that Chief Justice Agosti and myself are going to give a presentation to them regarding the Jury Improvement Commission report. If S.B. 73 does pass, we are basically going to be urging them to follow all those recommendations in the statute. That is our intent and we would hope that they would do so.
Justice Rose:
What we are trying to do is not only get the no exemptions, but also have internal uniformity. We are hopeful that each district court can establish some basic rules where they have the same reasons for letting someone go for cause. That will be something that will have to be established on the district court level and in each district court. While discretion is never perfect or always uniform, we hope to get it reasonably uniform and reasonably similar. What you also have to do is change the entire culture and outlook of the citizens and of the court system.
When I was at the Jury Improvement Commission, the national effort that began this in 2000, we had Dan Rather and Rudy Giuliani come before the Commission; they had both served on juries. New York had set a few years prior that there would be no exemptions for anybody. Rudy Giuliani, who was then mayor, came and said, “What you have to do is just change the mindset of the public and of the court system. This is a civic duty that we all must do. We have done that in New York and no one thinks they can get out of it because of their occupation.” If Dan Rather and Rudy Giuliani, who are very busy people, can serve, I think every citizen should step up to the plate.
John Desmond, Attorney at Law, Jones Vargas, Reno, Nevada:
[Introduced himself] I am also a member of the Jury Improvement Commission and one of the people who helped write the report. Before making the proposals that are before you today and that were in the Commission’s recommendations, I want to emphasize that the Commission extensively studied this. This was nearly a yearlong process. We conducted hearings around the state; we heard from a number of experts across the country on jury improvement issues, including Judge Michael Dann and Tom Munsterman from the National Center for State Courts. Judge Dann is a judge in the state of Arizona, and Arizona was one of the first states to take a look at how it could improve their jury system. A number of the proposals we looked at came from that state.
Before making the proposals that are before you today in S.B. 73, we did a survey of the states and found that 25 states and the District of Columbia have eliminated occupational exemptions altogether, as we are proposing today. As Justice Rose alluded to, in those states there has been a real change in the mindset among people, even though it has been slow. Shortly after New York changed its policy on automatic occupational exemptions, Chief Judge Judith Kaye from the New York Court of Appeals served on a jury. I think examples like that have really educated the public that no one is exempt and that it is everyone’s obligation to serve.
Additionally, before making the proposal that is before you today on the change in fee structure, we went to each county, looked at the administrative expense of paying people these de minimis checks that were issued for an appearance on the first day—and sometimes it was just in the form of mileage—and we found that the administrative costs often far exceeded the amount of the checks and many jurors who were excused that first day were surprised to receive any compensation. They just assumed that if they showed up and weren’t selected for the jury and were excused, they would not receive any compensation. I think the fee structure that we are proposing actually will result in a cost-savings collectively throughout the state. While there is an impact on some counties, it is very minimal.
Additionally, I think the proposal of $40 a day for those jurors who actually do serve is consistent with what a lot of other states have done. In fact, we heard from some former jurors it would help to ease the burden that some of them face in a long trial. We heard from one gentleman in Washoe County who experienced a real hardship after he had to serve on a two- or three-week trial and his employer did not pay him. He was limited to the wages that he received from the county for his jury service and he had a real hardship. To his credit, he said that he would do it again if called, but we felt we should not force jurors to have to make that decision and if we could raise the pay to compensate them for their service, it would be worthwhile.
I just wanted to emphasize that the proposals that are before you were the result of a long study. We looked at a number of different issues, rejected a number of issues, and we think the proposals in S.B. 73, as well as in the rest of the Commission’s report, will make the jury system in Nevada much better. We urge you to support them.
Dan Musgrove, Director, Intergovernmental Relations, Office of the County Manager, Clark County:
[Introduced himself.] I just wanted to go on record in support of this bill and give you some quick statistics on how much it would actually save. We did this based on February 2002 through February 2003; we believe it would save approximately $309,000 to Clark County alone.
I have some quick statistics for you. During that time period, we summoned over 221,000 people to serve. Out of that, 169,000 responded to those summons and only 24,000 actually reported for jury duty. Of that, 3,034 actually served on a jury; that is 12 percent of those summoned. Out of the 12 percent that actually served, there were approximately 1,285 days in trial and 274 trials during that time period in Clark County alone. The average time is 3 to 5 days; we feel that those people who are going to be serving deserve the compensation because they are serving and going beyond their civic duty of just showing up. I think the $40 a day really does compensate them, as the previous testimony stated. We stand in support.
Wanda Lopshire, Jury Commissioner, Second Judicial District Court, Washoe County:
[Introduced herself.] I also sat on the Jury Improvement Commission with the other members here today. I don’t have a bunch of statistics to give you, although we do have them. I come here to speak to you today as a person working with juries every week. This report hits to the heart; people do need to be paid more for their service; we do need to eliminate the exemptions. I deal with these people every day who say, “Why don’t they have to serve?” and I am forced to answer as honestly as I can that they have an exemption. “Well, why? I’m busy too. I work, I should be compensated for my time or I should not have to be here either.” In a nutshell, I believe in what we have proposed to you in S.B. 73. I just wanted to give you a working face as a member every week working with the citizens of Washoe County and to let you know that I believe wholeheartedly in what we have proposed to you. Thank you.
C. Rocky Finseth II, representing Washoe County:
[Introduced himself.] We are just going to do a “me too.” We are in support of the legislation. Total cost savings to Washoe County was estimated at $43,374 based on 2001-2002 figures.
Chairman Anderson:
We have taken and distributed and will make part of the official record for the day the “By the People” report (Exhibit C) from the Jury Improvement Commission. Is there anybody else wishing to speak in support?
Mr. Jackson, I made a copy of your e-mail (Exhibit D) to me this morning because I know that you weren’t planning to be here. Do you wish it to be distributed or not?
James Jackson, Nevada Attorneys for Criminal Justice:
[Introduced himself.] That is fine if you want to make that a part of the record and I will keep my comments very short rather than repeating what I said there. Just to state very briefly, NACJ is concerned about removing the exemptions and having the potential of a conflict between prosecutor and ending defense attorneys on jury panels. We view it as a little bit more practical than just theoretical as was indicated by the Supreme Court justice. I would also submit that Mr. Oceguera has raised a good point with respect to how to change the culture and how to ensure consistency. We would submit that under the current scheme and under the current statute, consistency is certainly guaranteed by the exemptions that exist.
Chairman Anderson:
Mr. Jackson, I know that you have practiced as a justice of the peace and as a public defender and you are currently in private practice. Have you ever seen a police officer appear in a courtroom? They are apparently excluded. Have you ever seen it anywhere else?
James Jackson:
I, myself, have never experienced in either civil or criminal practice where a police officer has been summoned as a potential juror. I have not had the experience that Justice Gibbons described, though I have heard that police officers have made it to a jury pool.
Chairman Anderson:
Does anyone else wish to be heard on Senate Bill 73? Let me close the hearing on Senate Bill 73 and take it back to Committee. I am going to hold it over for a work session. We are going to have a work session a week from Monday.
I have three amendments that have been delivered to me. That should leave us with about four amendments from this Committee. If we keep moving at the rate we are going, hopefully we will have all of our amendments in place by Monday. We are adjourned [at 9:14 a.m.].
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:
JoAnn Kula
Transcribing Secretary
APPROVED BY:
Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, Chairman
DATE: