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Court Booths Collect Juror Comments This Summer


WEBWIRE

Eleven college, graduate and law students have been selected to staff jury OmbudsService booths in seven courthouses in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens during the summer, announced The Fund for Modern Courts.

“The OmbudsService booths collect comments, questions and complaints from citizens called to jury duty to give a better picture of how jury service in New York is working,” said Lee Chabin, acting director of the Citizens Jury Project, a program of the Fund for Modern Courts. The information, which may be provided anonymously at the booths, forms the basis for improvements in the court system and provides the Office of Court Administration of the New York Unified Court System with feedback on how well new initiatives in jury reform are working.

The new Ombuds staff include: Derrick Barksdale, John Jay College of Criminal Justice graduate program, Shirley Boutin, George Washington University, Andrea Colan, tktktktkt, Carmen deMeza, The New School, Elizabeth Fiorelli, University at Buffalo Law School, Tamara Hale, Texas A & M graduate and AmeriCorps volunteer, David Pengel, Adelphi University graduate, Stella Reyter, City University of New York Law School, Susan Sheffler, Barnard College, Ali Akthar-Syed, NYU Gallatin School graduate, and Elizabeth Yalkut, Barnard College.

OmbudsService booths are staffed in or near jury assembly rooms of courthouses at 60 Centre Street, 100 Centre Street and 111 Centre Street in Manhattan; at 320 Jay Street in Brooklyn; at 120-55 Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens and 89-17 Sutphin Blvd. in Jamaica, both in Queens, and at 851 Grand Concourse in the Bronx.

The Citizens Jury Project, a program of The Fund for Modern Courts, was created in 1995 following the recommendation of the Jury Project, a blue-ribbon panel formed by New York State Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye to review and reform jury service in New York. The Fund for Modern Courts is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, statewide court reform organization founded in 1955 and dedicated to improving the courts through advocacy, public education and in-court programming.

A virtual OmbudService operated by the Citizens Jury Project permits individuals to email their suggestions about jury service and is accessible at www.juryproject.org. Citizens may also leave a message on a phone line, 212-541-6741 ext.10. For more information email: chabin@moderncourts.org.



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