A Judge's Bureaucratic Headache
A state law requiring judges to be present for jury selection creates an impossible logistical nightmare for district courts.
Judge E. W. Taylor spent Thursday night in Oroville on his way to Conconully from Republic, where he had been holding a term of court. The judge expressed a grievance over some of the recent legislative enactments, which will go down in the state’s history as a record of queer doings. The code now provides that jurors must be selected on the first Saturday in each month to serve during the following month, and that the judge must be present at the drawing. Because Judge Taylor presides over two counties, he is currently struggling to figure out how he can be in both Conconully and Republic on the same day to assist in making up the panel.
“The code provides that jurors must be selected on the first Saturday in each month... As Judge Taylor has two counties in his district he is busy figuring out how he can be in Conconully and Republic on the same day.”
This reflects the ongoing tension between centralized state administrative mandates and the logistical realities of serving vast, mountainous rural districts—a struggle that continues to shape Washington's judicial efficiency today.
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