Digital Library

For the past 12 months, a Committee of the Council for Court Excellence (CCE or The Council) has undertaken to re-examine the jury system in the District of Columbia, as a follow up to CCE’s initial study of jury service in 1998. We have been pleased to co-chair this recent effort, and we are delighted to share the results in this report: Jury Service Revisited: Upgrades for the 21st Century. Building on the seminal CCE study, our devoted Committee—comprised of judges, court officials, trial attorneys, bar leaders, policy experts, and former jurors—spent many hours researching various aspects of jury service in the District, debating potential proposals, and drafting the recommendations that appear in this report, which we hope will be useful both to the officials in our community who bear the responsibility of administering this critical institution and to the citizens who devote their time and attention to the important work of serving as jurors.

CCE's Post-Arrest Report: describes for the first time DC 's post-arrest process; recommends a legislative proposal and updated instructions to the public about post-arrest options; and identifies additional issues for possible consideration.

CCE's Pedestrian Safety Committee releases report endorsing significant fines for traffic violations and expanded, active, high visibility enforcement.

CCE has released the first major study to document the enormous obstacles to employment facing Washington, DC residents with a criminal record.

This is the DC Superior Court's January 2012 response to CCE's July 2011 report proposing practice standards for court-appointed attorneys for children in custody cases.

This July 2011 proposal sets forth standards for good practices and consistency in the performance of lawyers for children in custody cases in DC Superior Court.

A report on the Distirct's Disorderly Conduct statutes and a legislative proposal to bring them into conformity with DC Court of Appeals and First Amendment caselaw and to promote better understanding of disorderly conduct by the public and law enforcement.

Submitted to the Washington DC Police Foundation
August 24, 2010