by Clint Cooper
Fifty-one years ago, a new three- or four-bedroom home in the Shannon Hills subdivision of Middle Valley was priced “in the 30s” [$30,000s]. The list price of a new Ford LTD four-door hardtop was $3,833, and a gallon of gas would set you back 38.5 cents. In that same year of 1973, Hamilton County jurors were paid $10 per day.
Last month, the median sold price for homes in Hamilton County was $359,603. The list price for a new Ford Mustang starts at $31,920, and as of Wednesday, the average price for a gallon of gas in the United States was $3.30. And Hamilton County jurors are paid $10 per day.
We wish that were fake news, but it’s not.
Next week, the Hamilton County Commission will have the opportunity to change that. A resolution raising the per diem pay of grand jurors and regular jurors to $20 will be voted on, and from the supportive voices of commissioners during this week’s agenda session, we’re fairly confident they’ll do that.
Newspaper archives show that in 1991 seven different grand juries over the previous three years had suggested the pay be raised from $10 to $25.
“No one expects to make money while serving but perhaps if the pay was higher, more people would be able and/or willing to participate,” one panel said.
With such low pay, a second panel said, “too many qualified people are thus denied their right and privilege of serving on a jury — the backbone of our judicial system.”
Bill Bennett, the chairman of the Hamilton County Commission at the time, gave what seems to us a pretty flimsy excuse as to why it couldn’t happen.
“The reason that it hasn’t been raised, is that it just gets in with all the other things at budget time, and it just gets out-prioritized,” he said.
Unfortunately, the county seems to have a history of low pay for jurors.
In 1919, a Judge Conner opposed a state legislative bill that would have raised Hamilton County juror pay from $1.50 to $3 because it would make us the only county in the state paying that much.
“Jury service has always been looked upon as a service due the public from its citizens, and the pay has never been considered full compensation,” he said.
By 1949, Hamilton County juror pay was up to $5 per day, higher than the state’s set $4 because of a private act that had been passed that same year for the county.
Sixteen years later, in 1965, the state had raised its rate to $8 per day, but a local judge said the previous private act allowed Hamilton County to keep its compensation at $5.
Later that year, local attorney Richard Winningham noted that the pay for federal jurors was about to rise to $20 per day.
“If we are going to uphold the proper administration of justice in our county,” he said, “we will have to pay 20th-century money.”
In 1967, the now-County Councilman Winningham said the $5 pay was the lowest in the state and was “a disgrace.” He said most metropolitan counties paid $10 per day, and he planned to ask state legislators to repeal the local private act so Hamilton County at least could be on par with the state.
The low pay, Judge David Tom Walker said at the time, meant that self-employed people, as well as many others, were forced to ask to be excused from jury service, meaning they weren’t represented on juries, creating a deficiency in the jury system.
Later that year, a bill eliminating the private act was passed, and the Hamilton County Council ratified it so the local pay would increase to $8 per day.
Circuit Court Clerk Judy Medearis took up the mantle for higher pay in 1995, recommending the then-$10 per day (plus mileage) be raised to a flat $20.
“By the time a juror has paid to park and bought some soup at the Soup Kitchen [then a popular downtown restaurant close to the Hamilton County Courthouse],” she said, “their $10 is about gone.” She also made the point that Walker did nearly 20 years earlier that “the ‘jury of your peers'” was being skewed because “we are mostly getting those who can afford to serve and retirees.”
On Wednesday of this week, it was Hamilton County Circuit Court Clerk Larry Henry, with the support of all nine Hamilton County judges who deal with jury trials, who took up the case.
“We ask an awful lot of our jurors,” he told the County Commission, where he previously served three terms. He later told commissioners, “You’re not gonna get much for $10, let alone gas and lunch.”
Henry said Davidson County recently had increased its compensation to $20, while county websites indicate Shelby County and Knox County pay $11 per day.
Criminal Court Judge Boyd Patterson, who accompanied Henry, told commissioners that judges were asking that jurors not have to operate at a loss.
“It’s [the $20] really not enough,” he said, “but it gets them closer to breaking even.”
It’s apparent the state’s larger cities have been equally as thrifty as Hamilton County when it comes to paying jurors, but the same fee for 51 years?
We can do better, and we trust commissioners will make sure of that next week.
Read the original story published on the Times Free Press here.