Title
Approval of Jury Resource List Interlocal Agreement
Recommended Action
Committee Recommendation:
Not referred to a committee
City Manager Recommendation:
Move to approve the Jury Resource List Interlocal Agreement with Thurston County and authorize the Mayor to sign the agreement.
Report
Issue:
Whether to approve the Jury Resource List Interlocal Agreement with Thurston County to allow Olympia Municipal Court to proceed with conducting jury trials at the City using a list of jurors supplied by Thurston County Superior Court.
Staff Contact:
Maryam Olson, Court Administrator 360.709.2783
Presenter(s):
None - Consent Calendar Item
Background and Analysis:
The City of Olympia has an interlocal agreement with Thurston County Superior Court to conduct City jury trials at Thurston County. Thurston County summons jurors and provides a room to Olympia when a trial is confirmed. With the limited space at Thurston County, often there are times when no room is available for Olympia’s trials. This causes great concern for timely trials and possible dismissals of cases. Olympia Municipal Court has remodeled the courtroom to allow the City to conduct jury trials here. Per RCW 2.36.050, “…. courts of limited jurisdiction shall use the master jury list developed by the superior court to select a jury panel.” This Jury Resource List Interlocal Agreement would allow Thurston County to provide a list of jurors to the City of Olympia annually to conduct jury trials at the City. This would reduce the cost of conducting jury trials at Thurston County as the City would not pay a daily fee and a per case fee for each trial.
Neighborhood/Community Interests (if known):
The impact on the community will only be that the jury trials held at the City of Olympia will pull jurors from the City of Olympia zip codes and not from the outlying County as are the trials held at Thurston County Superior Court.
Options:
1. Approve the Jury Resource List Interlocal Agreement so supply a list of jurors to the City of Olympia to conduct jury trials at the City.
2. Do not approve the Jury Resource List Interlocal Agreement. The implications of non-approval will result in more costs to the City of Olympia for jury trials held as well as the chance of cases being dismissed due to not having rooms available at Thurston County Superior Court to conduct trials.
Financial Impact:
Conducting jury trials at Olympia Municipal Court will reduce the cost of jury trials held as there will be no daily fee of $426 and $272.00 per case fee for a total of $698 paid to Thurston County Superior Court for conducting each City jury trial at the County. There will only be an annual fee of $500 to Thurston County for supplying the Jury Resource List to the Olympia Municipal Court.
Attachments:
Jury Resource List Interlocal Agreement