Pack your snacks and a good book. Two-day jury duty has returned to Multnomah County Circuit Court.
That’s the minimum amount of time potential jurors called to the jury pool should expect to serve in person starting this month.
The change follows a seven-month experiment with one-day jury pools that officials hoped would help clear caseloads faster but that led to confusion among potential jurors about how many total days they might be expected to serve. People who are picked for juries must serve the length of the trials, regardless of whether they were in the pool for one day or two.
“After a few months of one-day service, judges and attorneys, anecdotally, felt that one-day jurors were coming to court perceiving that they would only be serving for one day and had not planned to be there for the amount of days that a trial can last, leading to more jurors being excused,” Rachel McCarthy, a spokesperson for the court, wrote in an email.
During the pandemic, the court held few in-person trials, using social distancing. It moved to online jury selection in October 2021. Fully in-person jury selection resumed March 28.
About 260 people serve in each two-day pool.
Beware: the end of one-day service doesn’t mean the end to confusing instructions.
People reporting to jury duty in Multnomah County may get text messages or emails before their second day that say they have been “released” from a jury panel.
That automated message does not mean they are free to go about their life.
Multnomah County jurors must return to the jury room for a second day to see if they’re assigned to a trial, unless they’ve been exempted, disqualified or dismissed.
Other rules still apply. Jurors may not bring weapons, alcohol, scissors or straight knitting needles to the courthouse. Circular knitting needles and crochet hooks are OK.
— Beth Slovic; bslovic@oregonian.com; @bethslovic
