Perhaps, none, though I don't know for certain.  When I arrived at the courthouse in Kent, I was checked for weapons at the entrance as usual, and then went up to the jury room, where I heard the end of a pep talk from a judge, and didn't watch the same instructional video I have seen twice before.  Court officials had prepared for three separate jury trials that day, so there was a large crowd in the jury room waiting to be called.  (Actually two large jury rooms, with the divider between them removed.)

A little before noon, we were told that two of the cases had been settled.  The clerk had run a computer program that selected 80 of the potential jurors to go home.  She read off their names, and they went home.  The rest of us went off to lunch.  After lunch, we came back and sat around reading, chatting, or using our laptops, as we had that morning.  (I was able to get a free WiFi connection and do some web surfing.)  A few dozed off in their seats.  Those that did must have been quite tired because the seats were not meant for sleeping.

At about two in the afternoon, we were told that they would not need a jury that afternoon and that we could go home.  Even better, for most of us, since the two cases had been settled, and the 80 who had been dismissed early were coming back, we were not needed on Thursday.  So I am finished with my jury service, at least until the next summons.

After lunch I did a quick count of the people in the room and found almost 60 still there.  I would guess that the court sent out summons to 150 people all together and that about 10 didn't show up for one reason or another.  That would have given the court almost 50 potential jurors for each trial.

This was quite expensive — though not for the court.  Let's do a quick, back-of-the-envelope estimate to get a rough idea of just how expensive.  I think we can assume that even those who left early in the morning lost most of their day.  If each person summoned earns, on the average, 200 dollars a day, then having the 140 potential jurors there that day cost $28,000 — and accomplished nothing.  Sometimes the individual jurors bore the cost themselves; sometimes it was borne by their employer, especially if the juror works for a large organization.

But the court doesn't see those costs; the court only sees the direct costs, the 10 dollars a day each juror receives, and the free bus passes, or mileage payments for those who drove to the court.

Those not familiar with American courts may wonder why so many potential jurors were called, when only 18 are needed for most trials (typically, 12 jurors plus 6 alternates).  American courts need that many because the lawyers for the two sides can dismiss so many during the questioning of potential jurors, during voir dire.   In other words, most of the potential jurors were there in order to give the lawyers for the two sides a chance to ensure a fair jury, or, if you prefer, a chance for the lawyers for each side to rig the jury.

In big cases, those efforts can be extraordinary.  For example, law firms sometimes employ polling firms to find out which groups in the population are likely to be disposed to their side in the dispute, so they can stack the jury with people from those groups.  (Interesting tidbit: A polling firm offered to do that kind of poll for the prosecution in the OJ trial, for free.  The prosecutors turned them down, and selected many black women for the jury, probably because the head prosecutor, Marcia Clark, saw it as a domestic violence case.  As the polling firm could have told her, black women were the group least likely to support the prosecution.)  Race is often used to select juries, though the lawyers doing it must always deny the obvious, at least publicly.

Would justice be served if we cut back, or even eliminated, the peremptory challenges to potential jurors, the challenges the lawyers need not justify?  I think so.  At the very least, the question deserves serious research.  And we would certainly save a lot of money, if we were to cut back or eliminate those peremptory challenges.

Cross posted at Jim Miller on Politics.

(Perhaps I should add that I am not saying this because my experiences in these jury pools imposed any hardship on me, personally.  Each time I have been called, I have had a chance to get a worm's eye view of the court system, and have learned something about it, something I can share with you.  But it would be foolish not to recognize that most jurors do not have my free time, or my desire to learn something about our judicial system, foolish not to recognize that many jurors find serving a hardship.)