2024 California Rules of Court
Rule 10.625. Certain demographic data relating to regular grand jurors
(a) Definitions
The following definitions apply under this rule:
(1) "Regular grand jury" means a body of citizens of a county selected by the court to investigate matters of civil concern in the county, whether or not that body has jurisdiction to return indictments.
(2) "Race or ethnicity" reflects the concept of race used by the United States Census Bureau and reflects self-identification by people according to the race or races with which they most closely identify. These categories are sociopolitical constructs and should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature. The categories include both racial and national-origin groups.
(3) "Prospective regular grand juror" means those citizens who (a) respond in person to the jury summonses or questionnaires from the court for the purposes of grand jury service and are eligible to serve as regular grand jurors, or (b) either submit applications, are recruited, or are nominated by judicial officers and are eligible to serve as regular grand jurors.
(4) "Eligible to serve" means that the prospective regular grand juror meets each of the criteria set forth in Penal Code section 893(a) and is not disqualified by any factor set forth in section 893(b).
(b) Jury commissioner duties and responsibilities
(1) The jury commissioner or designee must create a method to capture the following data from prospective regular grand jurors:
(A) Age range, specifically:
(i) 18-25
(ii) 26-34
(iii) 35-44
(iv) 45-54
(v) 55-64
(vi) 65-74
(vii) 75 and over
(B) Gender; and
(C) Race or ethnicity from the following categories (candidates may select more than one category):
(i) American Indian or Alaska Native
(ii) Asian
(iii) Black or African American
(iv) Hispanic/Latino
(v) Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander
(vi) White
(vii) Other race or ethnicity (please state: )
(viii) Decline to answer
(2) Develop and maintain a database containing the following information regarding prospective regular grand jurors, the candidates who are ultimately selected by the court to serve as grand jurors, and any carry-over grand jurors: name, age range, occupation, gender, race or ethnicity, and the year(s) served on the regular grand jury. The database should indicate how the juror initially became a candidate (by random draw, application, or nomination).
(c) Annual summary
(1) The court must develop and maintain an annual summary of the information in the database maintained under (b)(2). The summary must not include the names of the candidates and must be made available to the public.
Rule 10.625 adopted effective January 1, 2007.
Advisory Committee Comment
This rule is intended to facilitate the courts' continued efforts to achieve the goals stated in standard 10.50 [formerly section 17] of the Standards of Judicial Administration, which encourages courts to employ various methods of soliciting prospective candidates to serve on regular grand juries that reflect a representative cross-section of the community they serve. Those methods include obtaining recommendations for grand jurors who encompass a cross-section of the county's population base, solicited from a broad representation of community-based organizations, civic leaders, and superior court judges, referees, and commissioners subdivision (b)(2)); having the court consider carry-over grand jury selections under Penal Code section 901(b) to ensure broad-based representation (Subd (c)); and encouraging judges who nominate persons for grand jury service under Penal Code section 903.4 to select candidates from the list returned by the jury commissioner or otherwise employing a nomination procedure to ensure broad-based representation from the community.
This rule is also intended to assist the courts in establishing a formal mechanism whereby they can monitor the extent to which they achieve the goal of seating representative regular grand juries through a process comparable to that stated in Penal Code section 904.6(e), which requires that persons selected for the "criminal grand jury shall be selected at random from a source or sources reasonably representative of a cross section of the population which is eligible for jury service in the county."