Fulton Court To Order 8K To Address Jury Duty No-Show Violations

The is about to send an invitation to about 8,700 residents who fail to show up for jury duty.

And saying "no" to this RSVP is not an option.

Those residents will be required to appear in these "show cause" hearings to explain why they failed to respond to serve when summoned.

Those Fulton County residents found in violation face fines of up to $500 and/or 20 days in jail.

The court calendar for the show cause Hearings are set to begin in July.

The move follows several months of the court attempting to contact jury duty no-shows, folks who were called to serve, but failed to show up.

It culminated in an : Those who failed to serve when called could contact the jury management office and reschedule a new time to serve.

All told, the court sent failure to appear letters to about 33,600 prospective jurors since last year.

"If a prospective juror received a summons and a failure to appear letter, their addresses are processed through the National Change of Address and Vital Records database prior to being placed on an FTA Calendar," spokeswoman Alicia Phillips wrote in an e-mail statement to East Atlanta Patch.

Court officials said more than 13,000 responded by the end of May.

"The Court is pleased that citizens are beginning to respond to their summonses and the potential of having them serve on a jury in the future," Phillips wrote.

Still, more than 21,700 did not respond.

Of that number 8,700 will receive the show cause notices.

As another change to ensure more compliance, the court will now issue failure to appear letters at the end of each week.

It's been an issue in Fulton County — a jurisdiction with a jury pool of roughly 1 million — because the no-show rate is about 50 percent.