Abstract
In July 2006, the Superior Court of Arizona, Maricopa County (Superior Court), contracted with the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) to review its jury management system. The Superior Court specifically requested that the NCSC Center for Jury Studies determine whether its Proximity Weighted Summoning (PWS) System randomly selects jurors from the master jury list for the county; whether the PWS System systematically excludes any identifiable group or population; and the effect of the PWS System on the demographic characteristics of jurors reporting at the various courthouse facilities in Maricopa County. The Superior Court also requested that the NCSC describe how other courts around the country summons jurors to multiple locations within a jurisdiction The impetus for this request resulted from a series of jury challenges alleging that the PWS System fails to comply with Arizona law requiring that jurors be randomly selected from the master jury list for the county and that the PWS System produces jury pools in the various court locations that do not reflect a fair cross section of the community. G. Thomas Munsterman and Paula Hannaford-Agor of the NCSC Center for Jury Studies visited the Superior Court on August 21-22 to obtain operational information about the PWS System, supporting data from the jury management system, and the Biographical Forms completed by jurors who reported for service in the Superior Court from September 2005 through August 2006. This report summarizes the findings from this assessment.
This abstract was taken from the authors' introduction.
Document Type
Report
Publication Date
10-2006
Publication Information
National Center for State Courts (2006)
Repository Citation
Hannaford-Agor, Paula and Munsterman, G. Thomas, "Assessment of PWS System Effects on the Random Selection of Jurors and the Demographic Characteristics of the Jury Poll in the Superior Court of Arizona, Maricopa County" (2006). Faculty Publications. 2407.
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs/2407