Notice Explaining the Process by which Names are Periodically
and Randomly Drawn for Jury Service.
28 U.S.C. §§ 1864(a); 1866(a).
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1861, all litigants “have the right to grand and petit jurors selected at
random from a fair cross section of the community.” The court uses a two-step process to select
jurors. First, a master jury wheel is created by selecting all names from the voter registration
lists and lists of licensed drivers who are U.S. Citizens and over 18 years of age from each
county of this district. Then, names are randomly drawn periodically from the master jury wheel
to receive juror qualification questionnaires. Individuals’ answers to these questionnaires
determine whether they are legally qualified to serve. If so, the names of those persons are put
on a second wheel, a qualified jury wheel. As prospective jurors are needed for a specific trial or
grand jury, juror summonses are sent to persons randomly selected from the qualified wheel. All
of these selections are carried out through a properly programmed electronic data processing
system for pure randomized selection. The pure randomized process ensures that the
mathematical odds of any single name being picked are substantially equal.
