Early end to California's jury pay experiment

CalMatters Inequality Insights via email
Can paying jurors a little more money create a more fair system of justice?

California had money to test that question during the COVID-19 pandemic, when multi-billion dollar surpluses gave lawmakers room to experiment. Beginning in 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two laws in successive years allowing pilot programs to increase pay for jury duty to $100 a day, up from $15.

The early results were promising, with a program in San Francisco reporting that the extra money gave lower-income residents more flexibility to serve on a jury.

But now in an era of state budget deficits, Newsom is asking lawmakers to cut short the experiment. He’d save $27.5 million by terminating the two-year pilot program that offers jurors extra money in seven counties.

Several of the counties in the test aren’t waiting for lawmakers to pass Newsom’s budget plan, which is due at the end of June. They shut down their programs immediately after the governor outlined the proposal earlier this month.

“Effective May 19, 2025 the AB 1981 pilot program which provided increased compensation to jurors will be discontinued,” El Dorado Superior Court Executive Officer Shelby Winieger said in a statement that was reported by the legal newspaper the Daily Journal.

Leaders in Alameda County aren’t quite ready to give up the program. Its chief public defender, Brendon Woods, told Joe Garcia of CalMatters “it’s absolutely shameful that this program is being considered to be cut.”

“When you think about the cost of this program — about $27.5 million, and the cost that, as a state, we pay nearly $14 billion to incarcerate people in prison — it’s kind of ridiculous that this small amount was being cut to make sure that our juries are more diverse,” he said.

Good idea, but fiscal reality...