Rule 4 - Master Juror List(a) The superior court clerk shall send a "Questionnaire as to Qualification for Jury Service" and a questionnaire for supplemental information, prepared and furnished by the court administrator, to each person randomly selected from the master juror list or to persons randomly selected for service on a particular pool or panel. The superior court clerk shall send a sufficient number of questionnaires to provide qualified persons to serve on a jury panel. The qualification questionnaire shall include a statement describing which responses are considered public and a statement that the court will not be contacting the potential juror to ask for the person's social security number, credit card number, or mother's maiden name. With the approval of the court administrator, the superior court clerk may include with the questionnaire a summons directing the juror to serve on a jury panel of the superior court at such time and place as the presiding judge directs. (b) Upon return and receipt of the questionnaire, the superior court clerk shall indicate thereon whether the person is qualified for jury duty. (c) All information provided in a potential juror's written responses to questionnaires related to jury service, requested pursuant to applicable rules, other than a juror's name and town of residence, is excepted from public access, absent a finding of good cause for disclosure by the court. In assessing good cause, the court must weigh the public interest in the release of the information sought against any harm as a result of disclosure. (d) The court shall keep for a period of two years a record of the reason for disqualification of any potential juror. (e) Whenever there is a possibility that the master juror list may be exhausted before the end of the year, the superior court clerk shall request the court administrator to randomly select people from the potential juror list and add them to the unit's master juror list. Vt. Juror Qualification R. 4
Adopted Oct. 29, 1993; amended Oct. 25, 2000, eff. 1/1/2001; 5/24/2011, eff. 6/1/2011; amended April 14, 2021, eff. 6/14/2021.Reporter's Notes-2021 Amendment
Rule 4(c) is amended to reconcile its provisions related to disclosure of juror responses to qualification and service questionnaires with the provisions of the related rules governing disclosure of such information to parties in civil and criminal cases for purposes of voir dire, and selection of jurors who will serve at trial. See V.R.C.P. 47(a) and V.R.Cr.P. 24(a). The amendment is contemporaneous with conforming amendments to those rules, as well as an exception in the Vermont Rules for Public Access to Court Records to preclude public access to the content of juror questionnaire responses, absent a finding of good cause by the court. Another purpose of the amendment is to put the rules for public access to such juror information in the Rules for Public Access to Court records, rather than outlying in various other procedural rules. Pursuant to added V.R.P.A.C.R. 6(b)(19), the limitations upon public access do not preclude attorneys and self-represented parties from referencing information in juror questionnaires in the course of the jury selection process and exercise of challenges since these aspects of those proceedings are historically publicly accessible, with limited exception.