JFA Team and the TTA Client will work towards addressing the underrepresentation of racial, ethnic, and other minorities on juries in St. Louis County, MN by conducting both qualitative and quantitative assessments of the jury system, developing a public education campaign for businesses and the general public on the importance of jury service, and educate court stakeholders on the importance of diverse jury pools.
Update (July-Dec 2021): We continued our monthly meetings with St. Louis County stakeholders. The court administrator has run into trouble getting the jury data to our jury expert, Paula Hannaford-Agor. One potential solution to this problem would be hiring an intern and having that person spend time manually gathering the data. Given that there has been so much trouble obtaining the data, we have decided to proceed with our focus groups with community members. On 9/16/2021 we hosted a two-hour focus group with community members of color on their experience with juries in St. Louis County. We held a second two-hour focus group on October 28, 2021 with two members of the St. Louis County community. We have had ongoing discussions on the best way to deliver our findings and recommendations if we do not receive the necessary jury data. As of this reporting period we have been able to get some data from the State Court Administrator's Office.
(Jan.-June 2022): Continued monthly meetings with stakeholders, conducted additional focus groups and have started generating a final report.
(July-Dec. 2022): Report is largely complete and undergoing final edits.
January-June 2023: Report completed and submitted to BJA for approval.
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Held a kick-off meeting with TTA point of contact, JD Schmid along with local court administrators and JFA partners in order to conduct introductions, answer some preliminary questions, and delineate expectations for one another.
Both the TTA recipient and TTA provider have reviewed and executed the MOU
Paula Hannoford of NCSC made a request for jury pool and panel data. Court administrator indicated it would take up to a month to receive the information.
We conducted one hour focus groups with judges in MN.
We conducted one hour focus groups with prosecutors in MN.
We conducted one hour focus groups with EJC members in MN.
We conducted one hour focus groups with Public Defenders in MN.
We conducted one hour focus groups with Court Administrators in MN. This is part 1 of 2 focus groups for these stakeholders.
We conducted one hour focus groups with Court Administrators in MN. This is part 2 of 2 focus groups for these stakeholders.
Venita Embry from RTI presented focus group findings and posited recommendations to St. Louis County criminal legal system stakeholders.
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