Senate Bill S5772

                                 BILL NUMBER:  S5772

 TITLE OF BILL :
An act to amend the judiciary law, in relation to the term of office
of commissioner of jurors


 PURPOSE :
To change the term of office of Commissioner of Jurors from 4 to 8
years, to insure a continuous pool of capable candidates for this
office.

 SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS :
Section 1 would amend section 504, subdivision A of the Judiciary law
to change from four years to eight years the term of office of
Commissioner of Jurors, and would make it gender neutral.

Section 2 would provide that this act shall take effect immediately.

 JUSTIFICATION :
Under present law, in each of the 57 counties outside of New York City
there is a Commissioner of Jurors who is responsible, on behalf of the
Chief Administrative Judge and the Unified Court System, for
overseeing administration of laws and rules relating to the drawing,
selection, summoning and impaneling of jurors. Each Commissioner is
appointed to a four year term by the County Jury Board of the county
              

in which he or she serves, unless the Commissioner also happens to be
the County Clerk of his or her county, in which event his or her term
of office as Commissioner will be coterminous with his or her term as
County Clerk.

By contrast, in each of the five counties comprising New York City,
the County Clerk automatically serves as Commissioner of Jurors for
his or her county. In those counties, there is no County Jury Board,
the County Clerk/Commissioner of Jurors is appointed to office by the
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the Judicial department in
which the county is located. Nor is there any specified term of
office, as the Constitution only provides that each County Clerk in
New York City is subject to removal by the Appellate Division.

Commissioner of Jurors are no longer county employees, having become
State employees in 1977 as part of the Unified Court Budget Act; and
while ideally Commissioners should be appointed by judicial
administrative officials and serve at their pleasure, as in the case
of New York City, it is recognized that County Jury Boards still play
an important role in contributing locally to development of policy
regarding operation of the jury system. For this reason, this measure
seeks not to displace those Boards, nor to relieve them of their long
held responsibility to select local Commissioner of Jurors, but only
to insure that these latter offices remain sufficiently attractive to
enable recruitment and retention of the kind of well trained and
highly professional persons needed to discharge their more demanding
responsibilities. The lure of a more meaningful term of office should
accomplish this end.

 LEGISLATIVE HISTORY :
2007/2008 A.3341 Referred to Judiciary
2005/2006 A.1630 Referred to Judiciary.
2003/2004 A.9692 Referred to Judiciary.

 FISCAL IMPLICATIONS :
None.

 EFFECTIVE DATE :
This act shall take effect immediately. Commissioner of Jurors in
office on such effective date would have their terms extended an
additional four years.