Overview
With more than 2,000 jury trials in Indiana each year, a critical part of each trial is gathering an impartial jury as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. In September 2005, the Indiana Supreme Court created a comprehensive list of potential jurors available to every county free of charge. Since then, courts all over the state have observed more representative, inclusive and diverse jury pools and the Indiana Supreme Court's Jury Pool program has been honored with national and state awards.

The Indiana Supreme Court, the Judicial Technology and Automation Committee (JTAC), and the Indiana Jury Committee are taking the next step by developing a web-based Jury Management System (JMS) that will be available to all courts at no cost.

More than one third of Indiana's 92 counties do not have a commercial jury management system, and many counties are not satisfied with the systems they have. Some courts are managing jurors and jury panels using homemade systems, and still others are completing these tasks manually on paper. JTAC's Jury Management System was created to fill these needs.

How It Works
The electronic application is available through the INcite (Indiana Court Information Technology Extranet) website. Counties can select jurors randomly, assign panels, manage panels, and manage claims to pay jurors. The system prints labels and reports and exports data for use in other documents. In the future the system will provide an automated website that lists jury panel cancellations by ID number, so citizens can check if they are needed for service via the Internet instead of calling the courthouse.

Counties that do not use the jury management system will still have the ability to securely export their Supreme Court approved master jury list or create jury pools from their master list through the INcite extranet.

Benefits of the System

• The system and maintenance is free to all counties
• Supreme Court jury lists can be automatically imported into the JMS
• Jury management operations are automated
• Juror information is easily searchable and updated
• The system can merge juror and trial information into documents
• A public website will permit potential jurors to check trial status

Pilot History and Status

JTAC is conducting an extensive pilot project. Two discovery sessions were held in December 2006 to get feedback from county jury administrators and to identify potential pilot counties. Valuable feedback was received and assisted JTAC in producing and delivering a better jury management system.

Pilot counties began using the JMS in 2007. Throughout the pilot JTAC is gathering feedback from the pilot users. Updates to the JMS are being implemented based on the feedback received.

Contact Information

If you are interested in using the JMS or for more information about the application, please contact Jill Russell at (317) 234-2734 (Fax: 317-234-2605) or jrussell@jtac.in.gov.