Abstract
For more than 30 years, Massachusetts has demonstrated a commitment to innovation in jury management. More recently, its trial courts have exhibited leadership and vision by embracing the use of performance measures to assess trial court performance across all areas of court operations. This commitment to excellence in court management serves as the backdrop to this assessment of juror utilization, which the Supreme Judicial Court requested from the NCSC Center for Jury Studies in April 2007.
To conduct the assessment, Paula Hannaford-Agor (Director, Center for Jury Studies) and G . Thomas Munsterman (Director Emeritus, Center for Jury Studies) met with judges, chief justices, and administrators in the Massachusetts jury system in a series of meetings on April 9-11, 2007 and obtained reports on jury yield and juror utilization for all trial courts during the period September 1 through November 30, 2006. The full report summarizes the thoughts and concerns expressed to NCSC during the site visit, describes juror utilization rates for the Massachusetts trial courts for the September 1 through November 30, 2006 period, compares these rates with juror utilization in other jurisdictions, and makes recommendations for practices to improve juror utilization. This summary highlights the major findings, conclusions and recommendations of the assessment.
This abstract has been taken from the authors' executive summary.
Document Type
Report
Publication Date
6-2007
Publication Information
National Center for State Courts (2007)
Repository Citation
Hannaford-Agor, Paula and Munsterman, G. Thomas, "Assessment of Juror Utilization in the Massachusetts Trial Courts" (2007). Faculty Publications. 2401.
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs/2401