UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA
ORDER REGARDING PROCEDURE )
FOR REFILLING DIVISIONAL ) STANDING ORDER NO. 36
MASTER JURY WHEELS )
This District Court's Plan for the Qualification and Random Selection of Grand and Petit
Jurors (the "Jury Plan") provides for the periodic emptying and refilling of the divisional master
jury wheels. Specifically, Section 4.03 of the Jury Plan provides that "[u]nless otherwise ordered
by the Court, the Clerk is directed to empty and then refill the divisional master jury wheels
every four years and this process shall be completed not later than March 31 of the year
following a general presidential election year."
The Clerk of Court has recommended, and this Court has determined, that the current
procedure of rehlling the master jury wheels in their entirety every four years is unwieldy in
several respects. It is cumbersome for Clerk's Office personnel to be obligated to perform the
entire refilling procedure all at once, rather than in incremental steps. Moreover, this procedure
creates inefficiencies as a result of the high and increasing incidence of stale, invalid addresses
and contact information for prospective jurors late in the four-year period, thereby imposing
escalating burdens on Clerk's Office staff to identiff and resolve those issues.
In the interest of ameliorating these imbalances, smoothing workflow, reducing the
frequency of prospective jurors with stale addresses, and allocating resources in a prudent and
efficient matter, the Clerk of Court is hereby directed to amend the procedure for emptying and
refilling the divisional master jury wheels as follows: The divisional master wheels are to be
completely emptied every four years, and refilled to one-half their current full levels, with such
process to be completed not later than March 31 of the year following a general presidential
election year. Not later than two years after that initial halfrvay refilling, the Clerk is directed to
supplement the names within the divisional master jury wheels by filling them to their current
full levels. Pursuant to this incremental, two-stage refilling process, the master jury wheels will
be refilled halfway not later than March 31 of the year following a general presidential year, then
refilled to the top within two years thereafter. Consistent with current practice, the master jury
wheels will then be emptied entirely and the refilling process commenced anew not later than
March 3l of the year following the next general presidentialyear.
This Standing Order is authorized by Section 4.03 of the Jury Plan, which sets forth the
refilling procedure "fu]nless otherwise ordered by the Court;" by Section 5.02 of the Jury Plan,
which provides that the Chief Judge or other Supervising Judge "may order the Clerk to obtain
additional names ... to be placed into the divisional master jury wheel;" and by 28 U.S.C. $
1863(bX4), which provides that "[t]he chiefjudge of the district court, or such other district court
judge as the plan may provide, may order additional names to be placed in the master jury wheel
from time to time as necessary."
To comply with Section 5.01 of the Jury Plan and28 U.S.C. $ 1863(bX4), the Clerk's
initial refilling stage must result in each divisional master jury wheel containing at least one-half
of 1 per centum of the total number of persons on the lists used as a source of names for such
division. It is expressly understood that the two-stage refilling procedure set forth herein will not
cause the total number of prospective jurors in any master jury wheel to fall below that05%
minimum threshold, even at the initial refilling stage.
DONE ttris !fiay of ?anuary,2[l7
FOR THE COURT:
William H. Steele
Chief United States District Judge
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