With no jurors in the house, trials postponed

By Laurel Walker of the Journal Sentinel

Waukesha - Oops.

A jury coordinator for Waukesha County circuit courts missed a step that her boss said she hasn't missed in 18 years - summoning county residents to the courthouse for jury duty Tuesday.

As a result, four scheduled jury trials in the criminal and traffic division had to be rescheduled because there were no jurors available to hear them.

Kathleen Madden, clerk of circuit court, said the unfortunate mistake was quickly appreciated when the jury assembly room was all but empty at 7:45 a.m. Tuesday. The only potential jurors to show up were a few whose service had been delayed earlier and they'd been told to return on Tuesday.

Her clerk realized her mistake and informed the judges, whom Madden said were very understanding. It is unusual to have that many criminal trials in a day, she said.

Normally 148 potential jurors would have been randomly picked by the computerized system and the clerk would have then caused summonses to be printed and mailed.

Madden said she's taken corrective action - incorporating a checklist of steps that must be marked off by the coordinator when a pool of potential jurors is needed.

Despite the mix-up that no doubt inconvenienced many in the legal system, Madden said the Waukesha County court system has about 70 jury trials a year with 2,500 potential jurors summoned for duty. She said exit surveys completed by those jurors routinely show a 98% or better satisfaction rating of their experience, which covers such things as how they were summoned, how they were treated by lawyers, the judge and staff, and how the facilities and food rated.