Meeting Archives: August 12, 2026

August 12, 2026

Index

To go to a specific meeting material, click one of the links below to be taken to where the text begins on this page.

Agenda
Prior Meeting Minutes
Oregon's Employment Related Statutes
Overview of Barriers and Potential Policy Solutions (updated)
Public Comment
Ratified Meeting Minutes

Agenda

Task Force on Removing Barriers to Jury Service

Meeting # 7: Public Education

August 12, 2026

Roll Call and Verification of Quorum

Chair Kimberly McCullough, Senior Counsel for Government Relations, Oregon Judicial Department (OJD)

Ratify Prior Meeting Minutes

Chair McCullough, Senior Counsel for Government Relations, OJD

Employment Related Issues

Group Discussion

Overview of Barriers and Potential Policy Solutions

Chair McCullough, Senior Counsel for Government Relations, OJD

Where Are We Going From Here

Chair McCullough, Senior Counsel for Government Relations, OJD

Public Comment

Materials

Prior Meeting Minutes
Oregon's Employment Related Statutes

General Employment Protections - ORS 10.090
Employment Protections Re: Insurance Coverage - ORS 10.092
Unemployment Administrative Rules & Enabling Statute - OAR 471-030-0120; ORS 657.155(1)(c)

Illinois Law Re: Not Having to Work Night Shifts

Illinois General Assembly - Full Text of HB 4844 (opens link to external website)

California Employer Resources

Overview of Barriers and Potential Policy Solutions (updated) (opens PDF)
Written Public Comment (if any)

Meeting Materials

Draft - Meeting Minutes (to be voted on at the 8/12/26 meeting)

Task Force on Removing Barriers to Jury Service

Date: July 14, 2026

Time: 11:30am-1:00pm

Location: Virtual via WebEx Webinar

Members in Attendance: Derek Sangston, Chair Kimberly McCullough, Tim Dooley, Honorable Matthew Shirtcliff, Representative Tom Andersen, Royce Williams, Kia Tolbert, Nansi López, Keren Farkas, Honorable Tucker Rossetto, Representative Wallan

Members Not in Attendance: Senator James Manning, Jr., Honorable Chanpone Sinlapasai, Bryan Brock, Senator Kim Thatcher

Quorum: Yes (8)

Ratify Prior Meeting Minutes

Chair McCullough noted that while Bryan Brock is no longer the executive director of ODAA, he will continue serving on the task force for a short amount of time until the member reappointment process for his replacement is complete
Chair McCullough asked if anyone had objections to ratifying the June 8, 2026, meeting minutes

Tolbert asked to clarify in the notes that the reference to “…especially in criminal cases, many of the parties Tolbert represents are unhoused individuals” be changed to “especially in criminal cases, many of the clients represented are unhoused individuals”

Chair McCullough requested that change be made to the minutes and asked, with that, if anyone had any objections to ratifying them

There were no objections, so Chair McCullough noted they are ratified

Online Deferrals and Excusals

Chair McCullough noted there was a question from the last meeting about when the process for deferrals and excusals is available

There was also a suggestion about making sure that that process is available online

Harvis provided an overview of the online process for excusals and deferrals and reviewed the juror questionnaire

When a person receives a summons they can respond or request excusals/deferrals by coming in-person to the court, calling, sending an email, or using the online juror response portal (most common)

Courts send out jury summons four to six weeks before service to give folks time to respond and account for delays in the mail

You can request an excusal or deferral up to 5:00 p.m. the day before the first day of service (some counties may cut it off a little sooner depending on staff hours)
The jury summons will have a QR code or link that will generally take you to the county’s jury service hub, which includes the summons response form

Harvis walked the group through opening and completing the form

Eligibility questions will still be asked even if a person is trying to ask for an excusal or deferral
There are several questions related to juror compensation

In order to receive your wages, must you decline juror pay?
How would you like to receive eligible reimbursement?

Would you like to waive any of that to the Jury Improvement Fund?

How you plan on getting to jury service (indicates potential mileage/public transport reimbursement)

Asks juror for phone number and email, so courts can provide alerts and communications regarding jury service
Courts can choose to include supplemental questions

There are buttons on the main page for excusal and deferral requests

Some courts may require additional documentation to support excusals
When requesting a deferral, the court may allow for good cause a first time deferral and may allow a second one but there are more restrictions
You can always check your service status, reporting time/location, directions to court, edit your questionnaire, print a letter of your service, and check on the status of an excusal request

Representative Andersen asked if there is a penalty for someone who refuses to respond to a summons?

When someone doesn’t respond, we send a reminder closer to the reporting date

No Oregon courts hold contempt cases for failures to respond, some will do a failure to appear if it’s a special trial but that’s rare (mostly happens if a seated juror leaves for lunch and doesn’t come back)

López asked how we verify the Deferral-Transportation reason? Are there any deferral reasons pertaining to personal reasons such as holidays?

Harvis replied it is up to the court to decide how to handle hardship/inconvenience reasons and whether they want verification for it

We generally try to see if it could be a deferral instead of an excusal, so that they can still serve later at a better time rather than missing out on the opportunity altogether
Courts have discretion and it’s generally up to the judge(s) reviewing the request

Chair McCullough asked if the Oregon Judicial Department (OJD) has guidelines for excusal requests due to culturally significant holidays

Harvis replied there are statewide guidelines which recommend a deferral over an excusal, so they still have access to serve later

We may ask questions to clarify if it is a case of that specific date(s) not being doable

Harvis noted that we try to look at the larger statute, which says no one shall be denied the right to jury service for any reason based on one of the cognizable groups (e.g., religion)

Dooley asked how the supplemental question part of the jury summons works? Are they done by the parties in each case and then added in?

Harvis replied that there are two kinds of supplemental questionnaires:

Standard: if a court has agreed with their local jurisdiction that they’re going to have a set number of supplemental questions for all petit cases, then OJD will manually build those into the questionnaire for that court
Case-Specific: We make a call with the litigants and the judge on if it’s worth doing the manual entry into the questionnaire/portal or if it’s best to ask those questions in person

Dooley asked why, if the questions are for voir dire, does each judicial district do it differently?

Harvis replied it’s because some courts don’t feel they need to use a supplemental questionnaire, while others feel they do

It's all up to preference, but OJD created some templates, for those who do want to use them, to help have some consistency, but OJD doesn’t require use of them

Tolbert asked if the idea was that jurors must sign up for the online portal in advance of service? How many people don’t or are unable to?

Harvis replied that we see that most people are finding the online portal to be a useful resource for potential jurors and a majority respond through the portal

Of those who reply over the phone, it’s mostly people who are 70 years of age or older

Judge Shirtcliff noted that the issues on trials are so vast and different that it’s hard to create general supplemental questions in the bigger questionnaire, which is why his court does not currently use supplemental questions

Harvis noted she has seen case-specific supplemental questions come with summaries of the case and give more context than the more general supplemental questions

López asked if, aside from the 70 years of age or older group, if OJD tracks who’s calling with questions? What about the people who don’t have access to internet?

Harvis replied that the information OJD collects is anecdotal

We know how an excusal request was collected (phone, web, in-person) and what the request was

Across the state, the reason of being 70+ years old is the most common reason
For phone calls, the second most common reason is medical (people tend to want to explain and offer more information)
Requests due to being a student, not having transportation, or requests marked as “Other” reason, we have to rely more on the anecdotal emails and information we get, though we do try to have courts track those things, if possible

Chair McCullough noted that the word “deferral” may not be something everyone knows/understands

She suggested postponement may be easier to understand and that saying “postponement/deferral” in the online portal may be clearer and easier to understand

Harvis noted that in the main hub they did remove deferral and say “reschedule service” instead and the internal system uses “postponement” and the different uses can sometimes cause some confusion as well when they’re not consistent

Chair McCullough asked that further questions around the online portal and juror response process be sent to her and that she will send them to Harvis

Employment Related Issues

This discussion will be moved to the next meeting

Juror Compensation Continued

As of this morning, the Illinois law requiring employers to pay for compensation is awaiting Governor signature (has been with the Governor since June 18, 2026)
If the Task Force recommended a policy requiring the state to pay jurors more and have them pay $50/day for all days, it would cost $9.8 million per biennium in addition to what we are already paying

If we also increased Oregon’s mileage rate to the federal mileage rate, that would cost $3.2 million per biennium
Chair McCullough asked members to let her know if there are other numbers they’d like to see
Representative Andersen asked what percentage of an increase would the above be compared to what we’re currently paying?

Chair McCullough noted that in the 2025 biennium Oregon paid $3.5 million for juror compensation

Current per diem rate is $10/day for the first two days and $25/day for each additional day

López asked if the $13 million we’re looking at if juror pay increased to $50/day includes employers that would pay for jury duty?

Chair McCullough replied that the state pays jurors directly the per diem and then mileage and the $13 million would include increasing the per diem to $50/day and increasing the mileage pay
Chair McCullough noted that if employers pay juror compensation, then the state does not, and if the employer doesn’t pay but the person waives their jury service then the state still pays but the money goes into the Jury Improvement Fund

Judge Rossetto noted that the increase to $13 million is so high because juror compensation hasn’t been updated since 2002, so that’s many years of inflation and wage increases that haven’t been accounted for

Chair McCullough agreed and briefly reviewed the juror compensation and mileage information from the June 8th meetings’ historical juror wage presentation

Dooley asked if we have looked at what those juror compensation/mileage increases would be for municipal and justice court costs?

Chair McCullough replied that we would need to do some additional work looking into that and that she may ask Judge Rossetto to help with those information requests

The number of jury trials in municipal and justice courts is much lower than in circuit courts
Maybe we could do a survey or sampling of courts to determine how much compensation they are paying currently?
We will circle back and get some numbers on this

Overview of Barriers and Potential Policy Solutions

A list of barriers and potential policy solutions was included in the meeting materials

One thing not included in the compensation section was increasing mileage to the federal or DAS reimbursement rate
We will continue updating the document and including it with the meeting materials

Representative Andersen noted he is interested in cost-sharing models, particularly in discussing the idea of having parties contribute to paying jurors fees

We already have a high barrier to getting to court with the cost and filing fees, so it seems unfair to impose more costs for people to get access to justice

Does not like this option

Chair McCullough agreed that that could be a challenge

She noted that some parties in civil cases are business entities with money, but some are people who don’t even have an attorney, it’s a big range, and many civil cases are debt collection, landlord/tenant, etc. cases

Representative Andersen suggested that maybe there could be a system where having to contribute to juror costs is dependent on what the party is suing for (i.e., a few thousand dollars in back rent vs. $2 million in corporate litigation)

Chair McCullough noted that, with the idea of a cost-sharing model with attorney bar dues, it’s important to note that there is a wide range in attorney incomes which could make cost sharing with that a hardship for individuals
Tolbert asked if there is a cap of how much we are willing to spend on juror compensation? That would help us understand which model may work best to recommend

She noted, regardless of what the cap may be, juror compensation based on each juror’s income seems most amicable/fair

There could be a cap for those with very high incomes
Chair McCullough asked if that means someone with a lower income would receive more pay than someone with a higher income and how a system of determining pay based on income would work?

Chair McCullough noted that determining someone’s income can take a lot of work which creates an administrative burden

Morgan Novitt from the National Center for State Courts noted that they can compile a list of states that determine juror compensation based on income

San Francisco did a program increasing juror pay for those with low to moderate income

Novitt will send the link to that to Chair McCullough

We want to see how they administered it and what the outcome was

Chair McCullough noted that the cap of where we’re willing to spend to increase jury compensation is a difficult question to answer since it’s mostly up to the legislature and those in charge of the budget

Legislators that are on this Task Force and those members that are lobbyists may have some insight on if there is appetite for increasing juror compensation at the state level

Dooley asked Sangston what Oregon Business and Industry’s (OBI’s) view is on some model involving employer-based compensation? (e.g., employer pays, employer pays a portion, etc.)

Sangston noted that OBI wasn’t strongly in favor of it since not all employers are rich, and many are struggling throughout the state

OBI would likely oppose the idea that employers be required to pay for leave or pay for all or part of juror compensation

Chair McCullough asked about the idea of tax credits for employers? It would have a revenue impact, but a lower one than paying for juror compensation. Could that encourage more employers to be willing to pay for juror compensation?

Sangston replied that while it could be something good to offer employers, he thought that some of the employers that do offer jury leave would find a tax credit burdensome, particularly smaller employers who don’t have a tax department and don’t have the ability to suddenly have to increase their bookkeeping and record keeping on employees that are out on jury leave

About 80% of employers are small employers with 50, or less, employees

López noted that, under public education, she wanted to add that we want to make sure when talking about community outreach that we think about the diversity of our communities

We should ensure we’re hitting the communities we typically don’t think about in these spaces, especially communities of color, to make sure people understand this process and are included in it
López noted her appreciation for the trauma and anxiety considerations being included in the Task Force’s list
López noted, for the accessibility consideration, Lopez noted that the juror process is limited for those who are non-English speakers

Would accessibility mean opening the process to those who are non-English speakers?
Chair McCullough replied that in Oregon people have to have a certain level of English proficiency to serve on a jury, she found one state that provides translation service for those who don’t speak English to serve on a jury

They found under their constitution that folks had a right to serve on a jury regardless of language spoken
There has been legislation in Oregon before regarding providing translation services for jurors, but it didn’t make it through before due to the cost

Chair McCullough noted that we can dive into the topics of trauma/anxiety, accessibility, and public education more at future meetings

Tolbert noted, on employers sharing juror costs, that being an employer is expensive

For large corporations or franchises, it may not have as much of an impact as on family-owned businesses and businesses in rural counties
Seems problematic because it would take away the responsibility of the government to do their part and force it on employers

Where We Are Going From Here

Next meeting (8/12): Discuss employment-related issues we didn’t get to today
The following meeting (9/16): Trauma to jurors (someone from the Multnomah District Attorney’s office will speak)
The following meeting (9/29): Public education
If anyone has any questions, suggestions, or resources they’d like to share, please send them to Chair McCullough

Chair McCullough will look at the document Tolbert sent her

Chair McCullough will continue updating the barriers/policies document

Public Comment

None

Next Meeting

Date: August 12, 2026
Time: 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
Via: Webex Webinar

Oregon's Employment Related Statutes

Task Force on Removing Barriers to Jury Service

Oregon Revised Statutes and Oregon Administrative Rules

Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 10 (opens link to external website)

General Provisions

ORS 10.090 Prohibited acts by employers against jurors; notice to jurors; remedy for violations.

(1) An employer commits an unlawful employment practice under ORS chapter 659A if the employer discharges, threatens to discharge, intimidates or coerces any employee by reason of the employee’s service or scheduled service as a juror on a grand jury, trial jury or jury of inquest.
(2) employer may not require that an employee use vacation leave, sick leave or annual leave for time spent by the employee in responding to a summons for jury duty, and the employer shall allow the employee to take leave without pay for time spent by the employee in responding to a summons for jury duty.
(3) section may not be construed to alter or affect an employer’s policies or agreements with employees concerning employees’ wages during times when an employee serves or is scheduled to serve as a juror.
(4) summoning jurors, the person whose duty it is under the law to summon shall notify each juror of the juror’s rights under this section.
(5) employee who alleges a violation of subsection (1) of this section may bring a civil action under ORS 659A.885 or may file a complaint with the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries in the manner provided by ORS 659A.820.

ORS 10.092 Insurance coverage for employee during jury service; unlawful employment practice.

(1) An employer who employs 10 or more persons commits an unlawful employment practice under ORS chapter 659A if:

(a) The employer ceases to provide health, disability, life or other insurance coverage for an employee during times when the employee serves or is scheduled to serve as a juror; and
(b) The employee elected to have coverage continued while the employee served or was scheduled to serve as a juror, and the employee provided notice of that election to the employer in compliance with the employer’s policy for notification.

(2) Notwithstanding ORS 652.610 (3), if, following an election described in subsection (1) of this section, an employer is required or elects to pay any part of the costs of providing health, disability, life or other insurance coverage for the employee that should have been paid by the employee, the employer may deduct from the employee’s pay such amounts upon the employee’s return to work until the amount the employer advanced toward the payments is paid. The total amount deducted for insurance under this subsection may not exceed 10 percent of the employee’s gross pay each pay period.
(3) Notwithstanding ORS 652.610 (3), if the employer pays any part of the costs of providing health, disability, life or other insurance coverage for an employee under subsection (2) of this section, and the employee ceases to work for the employer before the total amount the employer advanced toward the payments is paid, the employer may deduct the remaining amounts from any amounts owed by the employer to the employee or may seek to recover those amounts by any other legal means.
(4) An employee who alleges a violation of this section may bring a civil action under ORS 659A.885 or may file a complaint with the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries in the manner provided by ORS 659A.820.

Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 657 (opens link to external website)

Benefits and Claims (Generally)

ORS 657.155 Benefit eligibility conditions; rules.

(1) An unemployed individual shall be eligible to receive benefits with respect to any week only if the Director of the Employment Department finds that:

(a) The individual has registered for work at and thereafter has continued to report at an employment office in accordance with such rules as the director may prescribe. However, the director may, by rule, waive or alter either or both of the requirements of this subsection as to individuals attached to regular jobs and as to such other types of cases or situations with respect to which the director finds that compliance with such requirements would be oppressive, or would be inconsistent with the purposes of this chapter; provided, that no such rule conflicts with ORS 657.255.
(b) The individual has made a claim for benefits with respect to such week in accordance with ORS 657.260.
(c) The individual is able to work, is available for work, and is actively seeking and unable to obtain suitable work. No individual participating in a community work and training program, as defined in ORS 411.855, shall, solely by reason thereof, be unavailable for work within the meaning of this section.
(d) The individual has been unemployed for a waiting period of one week, unless the Governor has waived the required waiting period as provided in ORS 401.186.
(e) The individual is not disqualified from benefits or ineligible for benefits under any other section of this chapter.
(f) The individual is qualified for benefits under ORS 657.150.

(a) An individual who leaves the individual’s normal labor market area for the major portion of any week is presumed to be unavailable for work within the meaning of this section.
(b) The presumption described in paragraph (a) of this subsection may be overcome if the individual establishes to the satisfaction of the director that the individual:

(A) Has conducted a bona fide search for work and has been reasonably accessible to suitable work in the labor market area in which the individual spent the major portion of the week to which the presumption applies; or
(B) Was required to be outside the individual’s normal labor market area to apply for suitable employment within the individual’s normal labor market.

(3) The director shall either promptly allow credit or pay benefits for any week for which benefits are claimed or promptly give notice of denial thereof in the manner provided in ORS 657.267 and 657.268.

Oregon Administrative Rules 471-030-0120 (opens link to external website)

Unemployment Insurance Benefits and Claims

471-030-0120 Jury Duty

For purposes of ORS 657.155(1)(c), an individual who is in all respects otherwise eligible for unemployment insurance benefits shall not be denied benefits solely by reason of serving on jury duty provided:

(1) The individual does not miss an opportunity to perform suitable work as a result of jury duty; and
(2) The individual actively sought work during the hours and days of the week in which the individual was not engaged in serving on jury duty.

Overview of Barriers and Potential Policy Solutions (updated)

Barriers to Jury Service and Policy Options

For August 12, 2026, Meeting

Barriers

Financial burden and low compensation
Transportation and parking
Employment and educational responsibilities
Loss of insurance coverage
Unemployment rules
Caregiving costs and responsibilities (children and other dependents)
Health issues
Accessibility (physical, language, etc.)
Trauma and anxiety triggered by the facts of the case and/or case type
Juror privacy and safety
Longer terms of service/multi-day trials
Lack of inclusion in jury source lists (particularly for unhoused individuals)
Lack of understanding and public education about:

The rights, roles, and expectations for jurors
The importance of jury service

Negative court and jury experiences

Long wait times at the court when called in for service
Other negative experiences

Psychological/behavioral barriers

Limited bandwidth
Lack of certainty about process and length of service
Fear/distrust of the court system
Forgetting

Peremptory challenges & discrimination
Criminal convictions
Statutory eligibility (conviction eligibility, citizenship, age, etc.) and excusal/deferral criteria

Policy Options

Compensation

Increase rate of compensation per day paid by the State and/or cities/counties:

Flat rate for all days of service
Graduated rate that increases after 2 days of service
Increased rate for lengthy trials (after X days of service)
Increased rate for grand jury service
Provide for ongoing increases based on Consumer Price Index, local income rates, or some other metric

Tier juror compensation based on income
Employer pays regular rate of pay for days serving jury duty

Could be made applicable only to employers of X or more employees

Tax credit for employers who pay employees while they attend jury service
Cost-sharing models

Require parties in civil cases to contribute toward the cost of paying juror fees
Add a fee to attorney bar dues to help pay juror fees
Employer pays a portion of juror fees and state pays a portion

Increase filing fees to raise funds for juror compensation
New Addition: Increase mileage reimbursement to federal/DAS rate
Reimburse jurors for parking expenses unless free parking is provided by the court
Create a stipend for child/dependent care expenses
Make improvements to the extraordinary expenses program to make it more accessible

Provide more information to jurors about the existence of the program
Create clearer guidelines for what is reimbursable through the program (e.g., dependent care, lodging for jurors when travel is long/difficult/unsafe)
Simplify the procedures for obtaining funds through the program

Consider special circumstance funds, like a Lengthy Trial Fund
Improve payment methods so jurors receive compensation faster
Implement a pilot program in X counties to study the impact of increased compensation on response and excusal rates
Data collection and analysis requirement tied to any increase in compensation to study how much of an impact it has on response and excusal rates

Transportation

Provide a court shuttle:

In counties that don’t have adequate public transportation
For jurors with physical disabilities that make travel difficult

Agreements between courts and public transport services to allow jurors to use their summons as a bus pass
Agreements between courts and businesses for using parking lots that are closer to the court and/or to use summons as a parking pass
Consider staggered reporting times or delayed starts for families with limited transportation or children in school (i.e. single car family, school drop off and pick up)

Public Education

Advertisements/public service announcements (print, radio, TV)
Short educational videos and other online collateral to be used on OJD’s website, partner websites, social media
Provide educational materials (posters, pamphlets, videos, lesson plans) to schools and educators

High school, college, educational associations

Topics for all of the above:

Importance of jury service
Likelihood of short length of service
What to expect when serving on a jury

Mock jury trial programs, particularly for youth
Ensure online information linked to on summons includes a typical agenda (run of the day) so jurors know what to expect
Collaborate with BOLI on education for employers/employees
Revamp juror orientation video (last updated in 2018)
Judges in the classroom; increase courthouse tours/experiences and jury simulations
Community outreach – bring court professionals to community areas (i.e. elder care facilities to speak on juror scams, community centers to speak about civic education, library or public spaces for open dialogues)

Employment protections

Add provision to employment protections that states that employees are not required to work night shift on the same day they have jury service (from Illinois law)
Strengthen protections relate to health insurance coverage continuity during jury service:

Reduce or eliminate the threshold number of employees before the protections kick in
Make it clear that hours spent serving on jury duty must count toward any minimum number of hours people have to work to get health insurance coverage during the time period that includes jury service
Remove the requirement that jurors “elect” to keep insurance coverage and notify their employer of the election in compliance with the employer’s policy, replacing it with a requirement that the employee simply notify the employer that they have been called for jury service
New Addition: Replace "Does this mean the employer can require a person to pay for the cost of "maintaining insurance during jury service?" with "Explore whether a change is needed to the provisions that allow an employer to recover the cost of insurance "that should have been paid by the employee"

Allow a person to obtain unemployment insurance during jury duty, even if they miss an opportunity to perform suitable work

Require waiver of juror fee if a person obtains unemployment insurance or allow a person to obtain both

Create sample juror leave policies for employers

Put them on the Oregon Judicial Department’s website and/or BOLI’s jury information website

Trauma/Anxiety

Provide online juror qualification questionnaires in advance of going to court to determine if a particular case or case type may be triggering or traumatic for a given potential juror
Protect jurors’ rights during jury selection and offer questioning alternatives for privacy/safety
For grand jurors and jurors in cases (civil and criminal) involving violence and sexual assault:

Provide resource lists
Provide post-venire and pre-trial training for jurors on self-care, secondary trauma and/or trauma-informed deliberation
Provide post-trial debrief
Provide access to post-jury duty counseling and/or facilitated group sessions

Training for judges and/or attorneys on trauma-informed trial practices

Accessibility

Provide language translation for people who don’t speak English as a first language and enact a statute similar to ORS 10.115 (interpreters for individuals with disabilities) that would allow language interpreters to be present for jury deliberations

Logistical changes

Reduce time people spend waiting
Stagger juror panel sign-ins to avoid long security/check-in lines
Utilize technology to keep people from lengthy wait periods
Provide an option to let the court know if you can only attend a one-day trial
Implement new Uniform Trial Court Rules so the court knows further in advance which cases will need jurors
Work towards the goal of one-day/one trial across counties – reduce separate orientation days
Remote juror orientation, questionnaires and/or jury selection
Increase trial certainty and set stronger restrictions for Call Hearings.

Miscellaneous

Change “master jury list” to “primary jury list” or something similar
Collect post-jury duty feedback to identify additional areas that may be improved
Use additional source lists (e.g., to try to include people who are unhoused)
Conduct a source list evaluation to review for accuracy and validity and identify need or potential of other source lists
Conduct a review of the USPS mailing accuracy and validity, including the rates of Oregonians utilizing the National Change of Address program (related to undeliverable rates)
Reduce or eliminate peremptory challenges
Special considerations for trials (trials with people in custody, self-represented/pro se litigants. Lengthy or high-profile trials)
Educate communities on jury scams, ensure protections to jurors whenever possible

Public Comment

Public Comment Submitted Via Task Force on Removing Barriers to Jury Service Online Contact Form

Public Comment Submitted July 26, 2026, by Catherine Caudle:

"It has become necessary for the master juror list to be questioned as to the accuracy that those listed are eligible to serve as required by statute ORS 10.215. Perhaps review of the master list could lead to the discovery of why chosen jurors fail to serve. The list comes from the DMV and voter rolls. DMV recently discovered non citizens where listed as citizens in there data. Voter rolls use a program called motor voter to update addresses and enroll voters as well. You can easily determine that mistakes like this did and will affect master jury lists. Perhaps those who fail to serve didn’t receive the summons or if they did they knew they were not eligible to serve. A closer look into this is necessary many a trial could have begun with a seated juror who was ineligible to serve.”

Ratified Meeting Minutes

Ratified - Meeting Minutes (voted on at the 9/1/26 meeting) Task Force on Removing Barriers to Jury Service

Date: August 12, 2026

Time: 11:30am-1:00pm

Location: Virtual via WebEx Webinar

Members in Attendance: Derek Sangston, Chair Kimberly McCullough, Tim Dooley, Representative Tom Andersen, Royce Williams, Kia Tolbert, Nansi López, Honorable Tucker Rossetto, Honorable Chanpone Sinlapasai

Members Not in Attendance: Senator James Manning, Jr., Bryan Brock, Senator Kim Thatcher, Honorable Matthew Shirtcliff, Keren Farkas, Representative Wallan

Quorum: Yes (7)

Ratify Prior Meeting Minutes

Will wait until we have a quorum to vote on the minutes

Employment Related Issues

Chair McCullough shared the Oregon Revised Statutes and Oregon Administrative Rules from the meeting materials
ORS 10.090

It's unlawful for an employer to discharge, threaten to discharge, intimate, or coerce any employee by reason of the employee’s service or scheduled service as a juror on a grand jury, trial jury, or jury of inquest

Employers are required to allow employees to serve their jury duty, they can’t take any adverse employment action against them for participating
If an employer violates this, an employee can file a civil action (sue) or file a complaint with BOLI under ORS 659A.820

Representative Andersen asked if there’s an attorney’s fees provision if an employee sues or files a BOLI complaint? Can they receive attorney’s fees?

Chair McCullough replied that attorney fees are available if one files suit under ORS 659A.885(1)

Employees can’t be required to use sick leave, vacation leave, or annual leave when on jury duty, they have to be allowed to take leave without pay

Employees may be given the option to choose whether to use vacation leave, sick leave, or leave depending on the employer’s policies

An employer is not required to pay employees for their jury service, but they may choose to do so
Employees need to be informed of their statutory rights when they’re summoned

That information is generally included on the summons or linked to on the summons

ORS 10.092 (Insurance Coverage)

An employer with 10 or more employees commits an unlawful employment practice if:

The employer stops providing health, disability, life, or other insurance coverage for an employee while they’re doing jury service and the employee; and
The employee elected to have coverage continue while they served or were scheduled to serve as a juror and they gave notice of that election to their employer in compliance with the employer’s notification policy

Puts the responsibility on the employee to say that they want to have their insurance continued

It's unclear why the employee has to inform the employer that they want their insurance continued during jury service
What happens if an employer doesn’t have a policy about what the notification is?

An employer may have a policy that says you only get insurance if you work X number of hours in a month, a week, etc.

Seems like this protection is about jury duty causing the employee to fall under an hours requirement, so some additional money needs to be paid to keep the insurance going

If the employer paid any of that money to continue the insurance that should have been paid by the employee, the employer can deduct that amount (up to 10% of the employees gross pay per pay period) from the employee’s pay upon their return to work until it is paid

If the employee stopped working for the employer before the total amount had been repaid by the employee, then the employer can deduct it from any remaining amounts due to the employee or can seek to recover it through legal means

If an employee alleges a violation of this statute, they can bring a civil action or file a complaint with BOLI
Chair McCullough noted the task force should think about ways this statute could be improved

ORS 657.155 (Unemployment Insurance)

When someone is eligible for unemployment insurance and they serve on jury duty, they can’t be denied their insurance benefits as long as they do not miss an opportunity to perform work due to jury duty and actively seek work on the days they were not engaged in jury duty
If you’re on unemployment insurance, you don’t get time off for jury duty the way you do if you’re employed

Chair McCullough noted that the task force may want to discuss if this is a good policy

Overview of Barriers and Potential Policy Solutions

Illinois Law HB 4844 Re: Not Having to Work Night Shifts

If an employee works the night shift on the same day they have jury service, or are scheduled to work the night shift, they don’t have to work that night shift

Tolbert was concerned that, even if they weren’t required to work the night shift, people would still do it rather than miss an opportunity to work

Not sure the Illinois bill resolves the problem of employees working/serving on a jury all day since people still need to work to avoid financial hardship
Chair McCullough agreed with Tolbert that there’s still a financial/compensation issue but noted that the idea is that they are not required to work, not that they can’t choose to

Sangston noted that there are Oregon policies that prohibit employees in certain industries from working too many hours

If we have an employee that wants to go to work after jury duty, they should have that option

Oregon Business and Industries (OBI) would need to run that idea by their employment attorneys

Chair McCullough asked Sangston to check with OBI’s employment attorneys and asked if it’s better to say an “employee may, but is not required to, work the night shift”

Tolbert asked if that would present any safety issues (e.g., such as for truck drivers who’d be at jury service all day then driving all night)

Chair McCullough suggested a provision such as “as long as it doesn’t present safety issues or violate an employer’s policy”

Sometimes jury service only takes a small portion of the day, so an employee may be able to rest before working the night shift
Under current Oregon law, it seems an employer could require their employee to work the night shift because it wouldn’t conflict with the timing of jury duty during the day, and that may be something we want to prohibit

Sangston noted he wasn’t sure how frequently that scenario would happen and asked for Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) statistics on how often this scenario occurs
Chair McCullough asked Harvis to check how many people ask for excusals because they have to work the night shift

Harvis replied that we can only get anecdotal evidence since that’s not a statutory excusal
Harvis noted that for night shift employees the reason for excusal seems more about being late to or leaving early from to jury service rather than asking for a full excusal

Health Insurance Coverage Continuity

Chair McCullough noted confusion around why those provisions would only apply to employers with 10 or more employees

She suggested the Task Force may want to consider reducing that threshold by saying “for all employers”
There's a financial concern component for the state since, when someone is injured without insurance, the cost often falls on the state
Chair McCullough suggested Sangston run the question by OBI to see why that threshold would be there

Sangston thought these provisions may have borrowed from the paid sick leave bill which applies to employers with 10 or more employees

He noted the smaller employers are the ones more likely to have the biggest problems with the extra burden

Sangston wanted to see statistics on how often this situation occurs
HB 2828 (2011) created the employment insurance provisions

At the time, there were stories of people losing insurance coverage because they were serving jury duty and people asking for excusal because they’d lose their coverage otherwise

Harvis will check to see if this is happening now and how often it comes up

Chair McCullough suggested an update so that the hours spent serving on jury duty must count towards the minimum number of hours employees need to work to receive coverage

Chair McCullough noted that it seems strange that jurors have to elect to keep insurance coverage and notify their employer of the election

It would make more sense for the employee to notify the employer that they’re serving on jury duty (which they’d likely be telling them anyways)
Seems like a strange burden to put on an employee to know they may lose coverage and to know to elect to continue it

Representative Andersen agreed and noted similar burdens on employees under ORS 10.090 and ORS 10.092

He asked if prospective jurors are given information on the rules they need to know to keep their insurance? What if they want to file a BOLI complaint or civil suit?

Chair McCullough does not think they are notified that they need to tell their employer to continue insurance

Representative Andersen noted the importance of employees knowing their rights
Chair McCullough suggested that if employees just needed to let their employer know they’re serving on jury duty without specifically electing to continue insurance coverage, then that would lower the burden on employees

Chair McCullough noted that there’s a provision that an employee is responsible for continuing the cost of insurance coverage

An employee needing to pay to continue their insurance coverage places a barrier on the employee, but shifting it to the employer may be burdensome for employers

Chair McCullough wondered how much it would cost to continue coverage when someone misses a day or two and they fall below the minimum hours worked threshold

Sangston asked for more information on how often this scenario comes up

He found it hard to imagine an employer, especially a small employer, would have HR go through the task of unenrolling someone from insurance for the generally short duration of jury service only to re-enroll them after (it’s an intensive process to unenroll and enroll)
Chair McCullough asked if there’s any harm in having employers simply automatically continue insurance coverage?

Sangston was unsure without looking at the data since there could be potential unintended consequences for employers, especially small employers
Chair McCullough asked if Sangston’s response would be different if it was found that there were people being adversely affected by the current rule?

Sangston replied it would make a difference, but he was not sure in what way
Chair McCullough noted that OJD would do some research and asked Sangston to do a surface level check to see if it would be a big shift for employers

Sangston speculated that reducing the burden of employees providing notice they want to continue coverage wouldn’t be too hard

López asked if there could be an opportunity for the task force to do more work with small businesses, particularly among underrepresented communities and in the current socioeconomic climate?

She asked if the task force could have a pool of folks to have a conversation with about specific questions and how changes could impact them?

Chair McCullough thought that’s a good idea and suggested the task force could put out a survey for people to fill out and we could look to López on who to give that to and how

A listening session where we schedule a date and time for folks to join in-person or remotely to share their thoughts and ideas could also be helpful

Task Force members could tune in and listen or be given a summary of what was discussed

Unemployment Insurance Provisions

If you’re on unemployment and there’s an opportunity to work you must or you don’t get insurance, but if you have a job your employer can’t discriminate against you if you want to do jury duty

Chair McCullough noted it seems there could be a scenario where someone loses their unemployment insurance because they chose to do jury duty instead of taking a job

Do they get unemployment insurance back after jury duty?

Chair McCullough asked what if it was changed to say that you can get unemployment insurance if you took one or more days to go to jury duty?

Would the juror fee need to be waived? Or no, since juror compensation is less than what an employer would pay?
Sangston didn’t think this was a question for OBI, but wanted to know what the unemployment department says about it
How many people on unemployment get called for jury duty and how would it change the calculus for what they are or aren’t paying out?
Chair McCullough noted that the next step is for the Task Force to consult with the unemployment department

Sample juror leave policies for employers are on California’s Judicial Department website

López noted that information on OJD’s website is often only available in a few languages, and asked how it’s accessible to all community members?

She noted that for languages outside of the top 10 most common for Oregon, there should be an ability for people to reach out to someone within the department to get copies in other languages
Chair McCullough asked Harvis how much of our jury information is online in multiple languages?

Harvis replied that anything on the State of Oregon website should have a languages button at the top right to translate any of the pages into Chinese, English, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese, but for PDFs you would have to request them in the needed language

General brochures are translated, but OJD doesn’t have an employment protections one

The general juror brochure mostly mentions that employers can’t fire or threaten to fire you

Chair McCullough suggested looking at what’s currently in PDF on OJD’s website that’s not translated and seeing what we could improve there

Chair McCullough shared the sample California juror leave policy and procedures for employers that’s in the meeting materials

California doesn’t require employers to pay employees for jury service, but they’re trying to encourage it by including it in these sample leave policies

Provided with an excused absence and time off with regular day’s pay
Benefits will remain in effect, and they’ll accrue vacation and sick days
If they work evenings, arrangements can be made to facilitate

Chair McCullough asked what the Task Force members thought of the California sample policy? Is it something we should recommend that OJD or OJD/BOLI develop and make available to employers?

Tolbert said the idea makes sense, it takes away some of the responsibility of the employer having to come up with a policy, but we should agree on the details before deciding what we want to go with

Representative Andersen thought it’s a good idea and would like to see continued work on it
Sangston didn’t see an issue with it

Accruing Vacation and Sick Time While Serving on Jury Duty

Chair McCullough noted that we may want to consider a statutory requirement that those accruals continue while a person is performing jury service

Sangston would want to run it by OBI, but he said they probably wouldn’t like a blanket statement about accrual

There's a statewide sick leave policy that resets every year, so the smallest employers would have the hardest time keeping track of all the times for the different policies
Chair McCullough noted she could see overlapping regulation making it hard for employers to follow
Tolbert asked if whatever policy the state has for employers/employees while they’re at work should apply while they’re at jury duty?

Chair McCullough noted that could help simplify things but is not as familiar with those statutes and may want to do some additional research on them

Returned to Meeting Minutes

Chair McCullough noted that Royce Williams, Judge Sinlapsai, and Nansi López had joined the meeting since the roll call at the beginning of the meeting
Chair McCullough asked if anyone had any changes to the 7/14/26 minutes

There were none

Chair McCullough asked if there were any objections to ratifying the 7/14/26 minutes

There were none

Chair McCullough stated that the 7/14/26 minutes were ratified

Where We Are Going From Here

9/1/26 Meeting - Trauma

Matti Girardi from the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office will talk about some work they’re doing there around secondary trauma support for grand jurors

Could help inform some recommendations the Task Force may want to make statewide

OJD has done a trauma pilot with the vendor Canopy

Free mental health resources and judicial training on vicarious trauma for jurors
Harvis will speak on that at the next meeting

AB 2357 (California Legislation) Mental Health Pilot Program

Chair McCullough will check where that bill is in the process

What the federal courts do related to mental health
Discuss options of what we may want to recommend for Oregon

9/29/26 Meeting - Public Education

Look at Oregon’s juror orientation video and recommend updates
OJD did a public service campaign that was grant funded (one month)
Look into what some other states have done and see if there are some recommendations from there

Public Comment

Received a public comment through the online submission form that was about Oregon’s master jury list

Concern about people potentially showing up on that list if they are ineligible to serve and that may have some impact on how many folks are eligible to serve and how many people request excusals
Concern about some people ending up on juries that are not eligible to serve
Harvis noted OJD has not done a systematic evaluation on the source lists

NCSC has supported conducting those evaluations in other states

Harvis noted that the comment pointed specifically at non-US citizens, but the number of disqualifications we get for that is very small, but people can become citizens, so changes are possible

Once OJD gets source lists from the DMV, we have another list from the Oregon Health Authority that removes those who are deceased

OJD also utilizes the national change of address lists so we aren’t getting people who out of state, out of county, or have undeliverable addresses

Judge Sinlapasai noted that she used to be a federal immigration attorney and that she has defended people in federal immigration court after they were accidentally sent a jury summons and showed up to court because they were worried about what would happen if they did not show up and were then removed based on their green card status

There are federal repercussions for what we don’t do or could do to improve our juror lists
Even if the numbers are very small, the fear of repercussions or telling someone citizenship status is very high, because of that the numbers Harvis reported may actually be higher than the data shows
Judge Sinlapasai suggested partnering with Business Oregon to, in addition to listening sessions, doing a questionnaire for all businesses about how they have educated their employees about their rights or if they have comments to share with the Task Force on things we have not considered that impact businesses

Chair McCullough liked that idea and will do some outreach to Business Oregon

Chair McCullough asked if, beyond checking the source lists, if there is something we can do to prevent federal repercussions

Is there information we could provide that says if you are not a U.S. citizen you do not need to show up for jury service?

Judge Sinlapasai replied that, in Oregon, there’s a USCIS liaison we could reach out to and work with to get a master list of who they have to do a data comparison, then we can say we did a vetting of our list against their list for anyone who lives in Oregon

We could also reach out to NGOs and nonprofits for getting conversations out there to the most vulnerable users

Harvis clarified that OJD’s data only reflects those who respond to the summons and make an excusal request, we can’t know how many are erroneously receiving jury summonses if they don’t reply

Harvis cautioned that people can become a citizen, so we wouldn’t want to permanently exclude persons who may later become citizens

López noted that people have reached out to Centro Cultural before that have received a jury summons and didn’t know what to do with it

There is hesitation on who they can connect with to keep the information of said persons private, so it’s a barrier for the communities that get this information and don’t know how to navigate it

Public education and connecting with trusted organizations will be a big part of that work

Chair McCullough suggested brainstorming with Harivs steps that can be taken to address this and help provide support to the community

Sangston noted that, for the issue of employees losing insurance due to missing hours because of jury service, he has had some larger employers tell him they don’t bother unenrolling employees because the process is complicated; however, they would still be uneasy about unnecessarily adding a requirement on employers
López asked that when we’re bringing in people to talk about trauma/anxiety we should make sure they are also sharing information that’s reflective of communities of color and how they see trauma

This includes trauma not only as a juror, but as a victim and the treatment they receive from judges and jurors

It should be a holistic approach

Chair McCullough asked if anyone has suggestions on who to invite for presenting on these topics to let her know

The discussion on trauma/anxiety can be expanded to be over multiple meetings if needed

Next Meeting

Date: September 1, 2026
Time: 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
Via: Webex Webinar