Oversight means no jury trials in Chesterfield for at least 3 weeks

Justice will be delayed for weeks for anyone seeking a criminal or civil jury trial in Chesterfield County.

An oversight in the court's annual process of selecting and certifying 10,000 potential jury candidates for the coming year has left Chesterfield without any available jurors for at least three weeks, maybe longer.

Several trials, including one scheduled this week for a former state police captain charged with multiple sex crimes, already have had to be postponed.

"It is simply a thing that fell through the cracks," said Chesterfield Circuit Judge Michael C. Allen, the court's chief judge.

"I'm the chief judge and the buck stops with me, and all I can tell you is that I'm sorry. We're taking steps to rectify it as quickly as we can."

The number of jury trials in Chesterfield can vary from month to month, and it was not clear yesterday how many will have to be rescheduled. At least four criminal jury trials had been scheduled for this week, according to the court's docket.

Defense attorney Greg Sheldon said a defendant's speedy-trial rights potentially could come into play if the state asks for a trial to be continued because of a lack of jurors.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to a speedy trial, and in Virginia a defendant accused of a felony must be tried within five months after he is indicted or the charges against him are certified during a preliminary hearing.

"I think the issue is going to be, can they try people within the time period that they have to try people?" Sheldon said. "I don't know if the error is going to be a good enough reason to [waive] the five-month rule."

Allen said the problem arose last year after the court's administrator, Patricia Davis, resigned to take a job with the Virginia Supreme Court.

Among the administrator's various duties was to ensure that an order be signed by July to appoint six to 10 jury commissioners, who are responsible for coming up with 10,000 qualified jury candidates from voter-registration lists. The circuit court clerk's office then randomly draws names from that master list to summon people for jury duty.

But because the court administrator resigned before July, and no one was appointed to fill that job because of county budget constraints, the matter got lost in the shuffle, and no commissioners were appointed, Allen said.

There was a moratorium on filling vacant county positions, and the court left the administrator's job unfilled to help save money.

Instead, Chesterfield's drug court administrator was tapped to serve in that role, along with her regular duties, Allen said. The departing administrator didn't leave a "heads-up" about the order that Allen needed to sign, the judge said.

The clerk's office alerted the court about the problem in the fall, Allen said, and the commissioners were appointed and began their work last month.

Allen said the court is trying to accelerate the process, and the eight commissioners could have a master jury list ready within three weeks. The judge said he may amend his original order and begin with 5,000 names, rather than the usual 10,000, to speed things along.

"The jury commissioners that have been appointed have worked very diligently and quickly, and we're very appreciative of their efforts," the judge said.

Once the master list is completed, the court prefers to give residents called for service at least two or three weeks' notice so "they can make arrangements in their personal and business lives to know that they're going to be called," Allen said.

Although many jury trials are scheduled each term, the majority of those cases are resolved beforehand and never are tried by a jury, he said. In civil cases, the judge noted, the court usually schedules four jury trials at once because at least three of them, if not all, are settled before trial.

Chesterfield Commonwealth's Attorney William W. Davenport said the situation won't put any pending criminal cases in jeopardy.

"I think that Judge Allen has taken all the measures to correct it," Davenport said. "It's one of those housekeeping things that comes up on a regular basis that, after a while, you make assumptions that it will get done. And sometimes it catches you like this.

"These things happen from time to time, and especially when you're going through times when you're short-handed and you don't have the staff that you used to have," Davenport added.

"I don't know that there's any blame or fault. We're dealing with it, and it's going to work out fine."

Contact Mark Bowes at (804) 649-6450 or mbowes@timesdispatch.com.