Maybe jury pools should (in addition to their random selection of votors) ask for the retired and/or homemakers, and the unemployed to volunteer for a jury pool...where jurors would be pulled at random. And PLEASE---raise the stipend. $15 is a joke. $40 is at least something...And the pay could maybe be 2/3 of a base wage day??/ Something not tempting, but surely better than nothing. There are risks but a large enough pool and hopefully sound preliminary questioning might still enable lawyers to select sound jurors.

I think the suggested amount was more like $40 per day. Still under minimum wage and not a very promising career move.

Y'know, at $100 per day a guy could become a "professional juror"...

Yes, there has been a decline over the years, but the numbers are much greater b/c and directly the result (so the article says) of a troubled economy. And yes, jurors receive a stipend, but in the range of $15 to $20 a day. Although some folks would like to increase it, again, over-extended state budgets are unlikely to allow that any time soon. What really struck me was the possibility that these worried, stressed jurors may be too eager to wrap up a case and get back to work rather than try to ensure that justice is served. Speaking of which, when people use the phrase "justice is served," shouldn't it mean that justice prevails? But doesn't it sometimes have the ring of retribution?

It seems to me that a decline in people willing to serve as jurors has been steady for a long while now. I would think the reverse would be true for the unemployed--don't the courts pay jurors a stipend for food, gas, etc.?