MINNESOTA COURT RULES

GENERAL RULES OF PRACTICE

Rule 802.Definitions

(a) "Court" means a district court of this state, and includes, when the context requires, any judge of the court.

(b) "Jury source list" means the list of all prospective jurors statewide resulting from combining the voter registration list and the driver's license and ID cardholders list, following the requirements set out in Rule 806 and the State Jury Administration Plan.

(c) "Voter registration list" means the record, maintained by the secretary of state, of persons registered to vote.

(d) "Driver's license and ID cardholders list" means the record, maintained by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, of persons who have been issued a license to drive a motor vehicle or a state identification card.

(e) "Random selection" means the selection of names in a manner totally immune to the purposeful or inadvertent introduction of subjective bias and such that no recognizable class of the population from which names are being selected can be purposely included or excluded, and such that each eligible and available person has an equal probability of selection.

(f) "Petit jury" means a body of six persons, impaneled and sworn in any court to try and determine, by verdict, any question or issue of fact in a civil or criminal action or proceeding, according to law and the evidence as given them in court. In a criminal action where the offense charged is a felony, a petit jury is a body of 12 persons, unless a different size is established in the Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure.

(g) "State Jury Administration Plan" means the jury administration plan adopted for use statewide by all judicial district administrators and published by the state court administrator's office.

(h) "State Jury Program" means the statewide jury program administered by the state court administrator's office, jury commissioners, and any judicial branch office or employees designated to perform tasks related to summoning and qualifying jurors for service.

(Amended effective January 1, 1994; amended effective November 22, 2023.)

Advisory Committee Comment - 1994 Amendment

Rule 802(i) is amended effective January 1, 1994, to make it clear that the definition of petit jury is not intended to change in any way the mechanism for agreeing to a different sized jury in criminal cases as established in Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure. This change is intended to obviate any confusion over this rule, and to eliminate the type of dispute that arose in a case brought to the Minnesota Court of Appeals. See State v. McKenzie, No. C7-93-1890 (Minn. Ct. App., Sept. 23, 1993) (Unpublished Order Opinion).

Advisory Committee Comment - 2023 Amendments

Rule 802 is modified in 2023 to: remove inaccurate and unnecessary definitions; reflect the consolidation of jury processes into a consistent, statewide system and process overseen and coordinated by the state court administrator's office under Judicial Council Policy, rather than a county-by-county system; and recognize that in 2021 a State Jury Administration Plan was adopted by all 10 judicial district administrators in their capacity as jury commissioners under Rule 803. Rule 802(d) clarifies that the driver's license and ID cardholders list includes all who have been issued a license or card, including those whose license has been suspended or revoked.