The goal of this petition is to convince elected officials and the populace of Deschutes county that an increase in Juror compensation is necessary for a fair trial, and then increase it to a point where jurors are very unlikely to be financially burdened by serving on jury duty.  The following is a more detailed explanation of why this should be the case.

Recently, my girlfriend was summoned for Jury Duty, she is a mother of 2 pre K kids and cannot afford child care.  While we are both interested in the criminal justice system and doing our part to give someone a fair and thoughtful trial, we looked at the juror compensation and were shocked.  $10 a day for the first 2 days and then $25 a day after that, with only $0.20 per mile round trip for getting to the location.  No one in Deschutes county can live on $25 a day, much less $10.  There is no reason someone should be financially burdened by serving as an essential and mandatory part of our justice system.  I have lived in places where jury duty payed $75 a day for 3 days and your employer gave you 8 hours of wages per day after that.  That seems so much more reasonable, unless you're a tipped worker.

So if many people would be so incredibly financially burdened to serve on jury duty, and would need to be excused, then who does serve on juries? Well, it seems like those with enough wealth to not be financially burdened to the point of homelessness or getting their car repossessed or not being able to afford prescriptions would be serving, which makes this an unideal jury.  A good jury should be one of our peers, or at least a representative cross section of the local populace.  If we have a barrier of access in our jury system that largely excludes the working class or the poor, the jury would be filled with people who are not working class, and thus not a jury of our peers.  The jury being filled with wealthy people leads to a systemic bias in the jury selection.  Also, if people are financially burdened at all on jury duty, it incentivizes a quick trial, not a fair one.  The movie "12 angry men" shows the effect rushed jurors can have on a fair trial pretty well.  

Overall, I want this petition to start a conversation among our elected officials in charge of the Deschutes county budget, a conversation with a group of people who are socioeconomically diverse enough to help make policy that serves all of the people in Deschutes County, whether they are the juror or the people who need a unagitated, unrushed, reasonably unbiased jury to take their time and examine the facts of a case.  Lets not forget that jury duty can be a very mentally taxing endeavor when people take it as seriously as it should be taken.  $100 a day flat rate plus mileage would be a good starting point for negotiations.