The Central District of California is discussing mandating vaccinations for court employees but has yet to consider such an order that would apply to jurors, according to the federal court’s top judge.
“As a court, we're not asking jurors in the summons and we're not asking them in the jury room whether they’ve been vaccinated but there's no rule in the central district that says you can't force vaccination,” said Philip Gutierrez, chief judge of the Central District of California. “It's up to each individual judge.”
However, in a criminal case, Gutierrez said he would not force vaccinations on the jury.
“I wouldn't do it because I don't want to have a challenge that somehow the diversity of the panel changed because I excluded jurors who were unvaccinated,” Gutierrez told the Southern California Record. “So, my personal choice would be not to do it.”
While providing testing onsite for court employees is not something that the Central District is planning to do in the near future, Gutierrez added that requiring them to be vaccinated or test off-site is currently being considered and discussed and could be issued as soon as the week of Sept. 20.
“We just don't have the budget for onsite testing,” he said. “I will be presenting a proposal to the executive committee and we will be working on a draft general order that contemplates making vaccinations mandatory, and if not vaccinated then testing. We are committee-driven so that kind of a policy needs to be passed by the executive committee and then the full court.”
Some 22.6 million or 66.8% of Californians have been fully vaccinated and 3.4 million or 10.2% are partially vaccinated, according to the state’s vaccine dashboard. In Los Angeles alone, 12.1 million doses have been administered.
“We've made a conscious decision not to ask the vaccination question of prospective jurors because, in the Central District of California, you have different vaccination rates among different ethnic and racial groups,” Gutierrez said. “To exclude jurors based on being unvaccinated could change the composition of the veneer.”
Other courts are approaching vaccination in a variety of ways.
For example, in Pennsylvania, federal courts are asking jurors to respond to a COVID-19 questionnaire that asks if they have experienced symptoms, according to media reports.
Northern District of Illinois court employees who are not fully vaccinated are required to wear masks at all times in the workplace, required to be tested twice a week, and are prohibited from work-related travel, according to a statement online.
“In preparing our order, we are certainly looking at every order out there on this issue,” Gutierrez said.
Whether or not a juror is vaccinated once jurors are empaneled could potentially impact how the pool is managed if someone is infected, according to Gutierrez.
“If a juror tested positive during the course of a trial, it would be very helpful to know whether the other jurors were vaccinated as you do contact tracing and, in fact, that did happen in one of our cases,” he said. “Knowing whether a juror is vaccinated or not, changes what you can and cannot do.”
On Sept. 7, the Los Angeles Superior Court will begin requiring the general public to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test before entering the courthouse.
“Presiding Judge Eric C. Taylor generally has encouraged everyone to do their part to end the pandemic by getting vaccinated, however, there are no vaccine requirements for jurors in Los Angeles County,” Los Angeles Superior Court communications director Ann Donlan said. “The Court has a face mask mandate, which applies to jurors and everyone else in our courthouses unless an individual has obtained an American with Disabilities Act (ADA) accommodation.”