MINNESOTA COURT RULES

GENERAL RULES OF PRACTICE

Rule 808.Qualifications for Jury Service

(a) The jury commissioner or designated judicial branch staff shall determine and document on the basis of information provided on the juror qualification questionnaire, supplemented if necessary, whether the prospective juror is qualified for jury service.

(b) To be qualified to serve as a juror, the prospective juror must be:

(1) A citizen of the United States.

(2) At least 18 years old.

(3) A resident of the county.

(4) Able to communicate in the English language.

(5) Able to render satisfactory jury service, with reasonable disability accommodations if necessary.

(6) A person who has had their civil rights restored if they have been convicted of a felony.

(7) A person who has not served as a state or federal grand or petit juror in the past four years, except where the jury commissioner has determined that a county has an insufficient number of prospective jurors and the state court administrator has approved qualifying for service a person who has not served in the past two years.

(c) District court and court of appeals judges and supreme court justices currently serving in the Minnesota Judicial Branch are disqualified from jury service. Federal judges, tribal judges, and other judicial officers, such as referees and magistrates, are not disqualified from jury service.

(d) If an otherwise qualified prospective juror claims to be incapable of serving due to a disability and requests to be excused from service, the judge may require the person to provide medical documentation proving the inability to serve, and may direct further inquiries to be made about the person's ability to serve as a juror. The judge may direct that reasonable accommodations be given to enable the person to serve in lieu of excusing the person from jury service.

(e) If a qualified prospective juror is 70 years of age or older and requests to be excused from jury service, the person shall be automatically excused from service without having to submit evidence of an inability to serve.

(Amended effective July 1, 2003; amended effective May 1, 2007; amended effective November 22, 2023.)

Jury Task Force Comment - 2003 Amendment

The Minnesota Supreme Court Jury Task Force recommends that Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 808(b)(7) be amended to provide that "A person who has not served as a state or federal grand or petit juror in the past two years." This change will allow counties with a reduced term of service to have an appropriately large pool of eligible jurors on which to draw.

Advisory Committee Comment - 2007 Amendment

Rule 808 is amended to change the exemption from repeated jury service from two to four years. This change is made on the recommendation of the Jury Managers Resource Team and reflects that sufficient numbers of jurors can be obtained with a four-year exemption. This change returns the rule to the period used before 2003, when the rule was amended to shorten the period to the current two-year period. The two-year period has resulted in various disproportionate calls to jury service and to complaints from repeatedly summoned jurors.

Advisory Committee Comment - 2023 Amendments

Rule 808(a) is updated in 2023 to allow flexibility in the administrative duty of documenting qualification for jury service. It is no longer physically recorded on the questionnaire and is currently maintained in the jury software program, which itself is subject to change over time. Rule 808(b)(7) allows for an adjustment in service term by the jury commissioner subject to approval by the state court administrator to provide the flexibility necessary to address juror shortages. Rule 808(c) limits disqualification of judicial officers to state district court and court of appeals judges and supreme court justices. Rule 808(d) explains the process for requests for accommodations to allow a person to serve or to be excused from juror service due to a disability. Rule 808(e) allows a juror 70 years of age or older to decline jury service.