Alameda County Superior Court jurors will no longer get $100 a day for their efforts thanks to state budget cuts, court officials announced.
The pilot program that provided the money, along with 67 cents per mile for travel to and from the courthouse, was removed from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget in his May revisions.
Jurors selected after Thursday will receive the regular $15 a day and 34 cents per mile.
The $27 million program was intended to gauge whether paying jurors more to participate in the legal process would increase the diversity of juries.
“We share the disappointment of our justice partners who had hoped this study would provide insight into how increased compensation could diversify jury pools,” said Alameda County Superior Court Presiding Judge Thomas Nixon. “Jurors are an essential part of our judicial system, and we need to do all we can to increase participation.”
In addition to Alameda County, six other superior court systems in the state were participating and the National Center for State Courts was compiling data for a report on the program’s effectiveness.
It’s not clear if such a report is feasible now that the program came to an end before it was even halfway complete, court officials said.
Any money that remains in the program budget will revert back to the state in order to help close a projected $12 billion budget shortfall.
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