Audit of the Office of Jury Commissioner (September 20, 2024)

This is a state performance audit of the Massachusetts Office of Jury Commissioner, the agency that manages jury summonses and juror participation for state trial courts.

“The Office of Jury Commissioner (OJC) was established by Section 5 of Chapter 234A of the Massachusetts General Laws to manage the random selection, summoning, and participation of prospective jurors in serving the needs of the divisions of the Commonwealth’s Trial Court.”

Auditors checked whether OJC collected feedback about juror comfort and convenience, and whether it included juror demographic data in required annual reports.

“The purpose of our audit was to determine the following:”

Jury service affects ordinary residents, so the state checked whether the system gathers feedback about the juror experience and tracks whether juror pools reflect the public.

“In an effort to ensure that the juror system is representative of the state’s population and based on demographic data, OJC compares the juror demographic data that prospective jurors self-report to Massachusetts demographic data published by the US Census Bureau.”

If you are called for jury duty, OJC has a feedback process for your experience and procedures for accommodations, including for deaf and hard of hearing jurors.

“OJC asks that all prospective and/or selected jurors complete voluntary juror feedback surveys, which OJC uses to enhance jurors’ comfort and convenience on an ongoing basis.”

The auditors did not find exceptions in their testing and concluded OJC met the two requirements they reviewed.

“We noted no exceptions in our testing; therefore, we concluded that, during the audit period, OJC collected feedback from jurors to provide for the reasonable comfort and convenience of jurors and provided juror demographic data in its annual reports.”

The report does not list corrective actions or recommendations, because auditors reported no significant issues; the Auditor sent the results to OJC and offered to discuss questions.

“I am available to discuss this audit if you or your team have any questions.”

This is a clean result for the areas reviewed: juror feedback, accessibility-related accommodations reviewed by auditors, and required demographic reporting.

“We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.”

A “performance audit” means auditors reviewed whether the agency carried out specific duties properly, using evidence and audit standards.

“We conducted this performance audit in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.”