Washington Courts: Press Release Detail

People of Color and Lower Socioeconomic Status are Underrepresented in Washington Juries, Demographic Survey Finds

During Washington’s 2021 Legislative Session, state lawmakers passed a bill which required the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) to provide “all courts with an electronic demographic survey for jurors who begin a jury term.” The aim was to collect data on each juror's race, ethnicity, age, sex, employment status, educational attainment and income with the central question of whether jurors are representative of the county populations from which they are selected.

On June 30 the completed report was delivered to the Legislature with its findings, along with recommendations for future policy changes for more representative juries. It is the largest and most comprehensive such survey conducted in Washington courts, with nearly 250,000 usable survey responses collected over a 17-month period.

“Jurors of color, particularly Black and Native jurors, remain underrepresented in jury pools throughout the state, and continue to face greater barriers to jury service,” Frank Thomas, a Senior Court Program Analyst for the Washington State Minority and Justice Commission, said.

“The report includes recommendations to expand jury diversity initiatives and alleviate the disproportionate barriers jurors of color face in reporting for jury service,” Thomas said. “The Minority and Justice Commission (MJC) is proud to have partnered with researchers from Seattle University to produce a report summarizing the state’s “largest jury summons demographic survey to date.”

Overall, trends in racial representation are similar to prior surveys in Washington state. People of color and those of low socioeconomic status generally remain underrepresented among respondents to jury summons. The following are some of the major highlights for the participating courts:

• Racial disproportionality: Among those responding to jury summons, Black, American Indian, and Alaska Native survey respondents are generally underrepresented. While mixed-race and two-or-more race categories are overrepresented, that does not account for the underrepresentation observed in the single-race categories.
• Income disproportionality: On average, jurors reporting for jury service have combined annual household incomes above the median income in their respective counties. Additionally, as income categories increase from lowest to highest, the proportion of White survey respondents increases. Combined household income is a significant indicator of a potential juror’s ability to participate in jury service.
• Disproportionality in education: Jurors reporting for jury service hold higher levels of education, on average, than the general populations within their respective counties. Education is clearly related to both employment and income. All three measures show a concentration of socioeconomic status within those reporting for jury duty.
• High prevalence of conflicts and hardships: Work related conflicts, dependent care, and personal health have remained the leading barriers cited by potential jurors, with a high-degree of similarity across all racial and gender categories. A majority (64 percent on average) of all survey respondents indicated experiencing a conflict or hardship that worked as a barrier to participating in jury service. Women were substantially more likely to report dependent care barriers with respect to children, aging family members, and other dependent care needs.

Based off of these findings, the report offers recommendations for future research, in order of importance they are:

1. Continue to monitor juror demographics. The data will be integral to providing baseline comparison data for any new or ongoing research.
2. Study the demographics of people who do not respond to summons. Understanding the details surrounding summons non-response is a critical piece to the representativeness question. Moreover, filling this gap in knowledge will aid in empirically driven policy.
3. Test whether the master lists in Washington State, where jury summons are drawn from, are representative of the population. If these lists are unrepresentative of key demographic factors, it would have impacts on the entire jury service process.
4. Implement pilot increases in juror pay and monitor changes in demographics that follow as work/financial-related and dependent care conflicts and hardships continue to play a significant role in preventing many, especially those with low income, from responding to and participating in jury duty.
5. Streamline communication between local court personnel and the Administrative Office of the Courts for all future survey efforts and large-scale policy changes, to better tailor resources to the specific needs of individual courthouses.
6. Fund data gathering on jury selection through the entire process, from summons to seating. Investing in or creating a jury management system that can do this for multiple – or all – courts would be worthwhile and could be feasible despite the decentralized nature of the Washington State court system.

The Washington State Minority and Justice Commission of the Supreme Court was established in 1990 by the Court to identify problems and make recommendations to ensure fair and equal treatment in the state courts for all parties, attorneys and court employees.

CONTACT: Patric Haerle, Patric.Haerle@courts.wa.gov