Online Juror Questionnaires - Marin Superior Court

Overview/Program Description:

In cases where juror questionnaires are used, the court now scans the questionnaires and uploads them to a secure, password-protected webpage that can only be accessed by attorneys and parties who have been granted access to the page. The unique password is assigned at the case level, so if there are multiple cases on the secure website with questionnaires, attorneys can only see the documents for their own cases. The attorneys and parties can view them electronically or print them, if they choose to review them in paper form. The judge is given the original paper copy until the jury is selected. After the jury is selected, the court uploads the questionnaire images (in .PDF format) to the court's imaging system. Once all appeals have run, the court discards the paper originals and only retains the images.

Program Benefits/Savings:

It has been very successful. The court has used this process for the past three to four years on many criminal and civil trials. This is a real efficiency for the court, as it saves staff time; paper; toner; and, at the back end, records management and storage resources. The attorneys like it because they can access the questionnaires on their laptops in the courtroom and do not have to carry the paper copies back and forth to court. When they are done with the questionnaires, they can delete the documents or store them electronically for later use if they are planning an appeal. Satisfaction from attorneys and court staff is very high. They all agree that this is a more efficient way to handle this cumbersome process.