Supreme Court of Florida
No. AOSC23-19
IN RE: JUROR SELECTION PLAN: PINELLAS COUNTY
ADMINISTRATIVE ORDER
Section 40.225, Florida Statutes, provides for the selection of
jurors to serve within the county by “an automated electronic
system.” Pursuant to that section, the chief judge of the circuit
must review and consent to the juror selection process, and the
clerk of the circuit court must submit to the Supreme Court of
Florida a description of the method for selecting jurors. Section
40.225(3), Florida Statutes, charges the Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court with the review and approval of the proposed juror
candidate selection process, hereinafter referred to as the “juror
pool selection plan.”
The Supreme Court has developed standards necessary to
ensure that juror pool selection plans satisfy statutory,
methodological, and due process requirements. The Court has
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tasked the Office of the State Courts Administrator with evaluating
proposed plans for compliance with those standards.
By letter dated December 5, 2022, and received on December
7, 2022, the Clerk of the Court for Pinellas County submitted a
request for the review and approval of the Pinellas County Juror
Pool Selection Plan in accordance with section 40.225(2), Florida
Statutes. The proposed plan reflects changes to both hardware and
software used for juror pool selection in Pinellas County.
The Office of the State Courts Administrator has completed an
extensive review of the proposed Pinellas County Juror Pool
Selection Plan, including an evaluation of statutory, due process,
statistical, and mathematical elements associated with the selection
of juror candidates. The plan meets established requirements for
approval.
Accordingly, the attached Pinellas County Juror Pool Selection
Plan, received from The Honorable Ken Burke, Clerk of Court for
Pinellas County, and approved by The Honorable Anthony
Rondolino, Chief Judge of the Sixth Judicial Circuit, is hereby
approved for use.
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DONE AND ORDERED at Tallahassee, Florida, on February
24, 2023.
________________________________
Chief Justice Carlos G. Muñiz
ATTEST:
_________________________________
John A. Tomasino, Clerk of Court
AOSC23-19
02/24/2023
AOSC23-19
02/24/2023
AOSC23-19 02/24/2023
AOSC23-19 02/24/2023
KEN
BURKE, CPA
CLERK
OF
THE
C
IR
CU
IT
COURT
AND
COMPTROLLER
- PINELLAS
COUNTY,
FLORIDA
Clerk
of
the
County Court
Recorder
of
Deeds
Clerk
and
Accountant
of
the Board
of
Co
unty
Comm
issioners
Custodian of
County
F
und
s
County
Auditor
Clerk of
the
Water a
nd
Navigation
Cont
rol
Authority
Co
urt Services
Office
of
the State
Co
urts Administrator
Supreme Court Building
500 South
Du
val Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399
Dear Court Services,
31
5
Co
urt
Street, Room 400
Clearwater,
FL
33756-5165
Te
lephone: (727) 464-3341
Fax:
(7
27) 453-3589
www.mypinellasclerk.org
December 5, 2022
Mailed US and Certified Mail
Return Receipt
7020 1290 0001 6084 6648
We are seeking the Office
of
the State Courts Administrator's review and the Supreme
Co
urt's
approv
al
of
the enclosed Juror Pool Selection Plan for Pinellas
Co
unty. Included in the plan is
the proposed hardware, software, random number
ge
nerator program and al
go
rithms to be used
in the jury selection process.
Chief
Judge Anthony Rondolino has r
ev
iew
ed
the plan, and a
signed statement indicating his revi
ew
is enclosed.
Please let me know
if
you need additional information. I l
oo
k forward to the Supreme Court's
approval
of
the proposed plan.
Sine
;:~
Ken Burke
Enc.
cc: The Honorable Anthony Rondolino, C
hief
Judge
Jenn
if
er Parker,
Tria
l
Co
urt Administrator
~ink
uf
;Ilj'fnrioa
,
~ixtI1
Wuoicic1I
Qlirntit
of
Jfiiorio'1
COt:NT
IE
S
Or
PI
NELLAS
AND
PA
SCO
545 - 1ST AV
F.
NU
E
NORT
I-I
.
RO
OM
400
ST PF.Tf.J\S!llJRG. FI.ORIOA 3.170 I
(727) 5S2-7272
ANTHONY RONDOLINO
C
HIEF
J
UD
GE
CINDY HERRINGT
ON
J
UD
I
CIAL
ASSISTA
NT
December
2,
2022
Court Services
Office
of
the State
Courts
Administrator
Supreme
Court
Building
500
South
Duval Street
Tallahassee,
FL
32399
Dear
Court
Services:
In
accordance with section
40
.225(1
).
Florida Statutes, I have reviewed the
Juror
Pool Selection
Plan dated
December
2,
2022
for Pinellas County which
was
drafted by
and
submitted
to
me
by
the Office
of
Ken
Burke,
Clerk
of
the
Circuit
Court
and
Comptroller
for Pinellas County. Upon
review. I consent to
its
use within
the
Sixth Circuit for Pinellas County.
Chief
Judge
Anthony
Rondolino
Sixth Judicial Circuit
Enc.
Juror
Pool
Selection Plan. Dece
mbe
r 2. 2022
THE SIXTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT
PINELLAS COUNTY, FLORIDA
JUROR POOL SELECTION PLAN
DECEMBER 2, 2022
Pursuant to Florida Statutes§ 40.225, this Juror Pool Selection Plan describes the process authorized by
law for obtaining
jury
venires
in
all courts
of
Pinellas County in which jury trials are held. A majority
of
the judges authorized to conduct jury trials in Pinellas County have consented to this process which
utilizes computer technology that expedites the selection
of
jurors with no loss
of
the sanctity
of
random selection. The plan applies to selection
of
jurors for
petitjury
, grand jury, and statewide grand
jury service. The technical information outlined in this plan has been provided by Tyler Technologies
and Pinellas County Business Technology Services.
I.
Equipment:
A. The primary enterprise jury management system (EJM)
SQL
database runs on a VMware
virtual platform. The server is a Microsoft Windows 2019 server with 4 Intel Xeon CPU E5-
2680 v4 @2.40GHz CPUs with
12
GB Ram and 262 GB hard drive. The servers are located at
the Public Safety Complex (PSC) building, a Category 5 hurricane hardened facility. There
are DEV, TEST, and PROD instances
of
the application.
B. The primary EJM web/application servers will be located at the PSC building,
in
the same
computer room as the database server. These servers run
on
VMware virtual platform. The
server is a Microsoft Windows 2019 server with 4 Intel Xeon CPU E5-2680 v4 @2.40GHz
CPUs. The APP server has
12
GB RAM and a 150 GB hard drive, and the WEB servers have
4GB
RAM
and 150 GB hard drive.
C.
Pinellas County maintains a secondary VM host site at a separate location for failover and
disaster recovery. In the event
of
a failure, all servers will
be
recovered at the DR s
it
e for
business continuity.
D.
The EJM database will be backed up nightly using Rubrik. The full DB backups will be
maintained for thirty (30) days.
E. All hardware and software associated with the jury application will be upgraded on an as-
needed basis.
2. Alternative Method
of
Selecting Venire:
A. The sources from which names shall be taken are:
(1) A quarterly updated list
of
Florida Department
of
Highway Safety and Motor Vehicle
(DHSMV) licensed drivers and identification card holders,
18
years
of
age or older, who
are citizens
of
the United States, and legal residents
of
Florida residing
in
Pinellas
County.
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unty Juror Selection Plan I
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(2) Persons filing affidavits pursuant to F.S. § 40.01
I.
B.
The
Clerk
of
the
Circuit Court (Clerk) is designated
as
the official custodian
of
the computer
records to be used in
jury
selection
and
shall ensure they are not accessible
to
anyone other
than those directly involved in selection
of
venires,
as
herein provided. Functions
of
the Clerk
may
be performed by Deputy Clerks.
The
Clerk
shall maintain these sources in accordance
with F.S. § 40.022 and
other
relevant statutes,
if
implemented.
C.
The
Chief
Judge
or
the
Chief
Judge's
designee shall direct the
Clerk
to
select
at
random, and
as
often
as
required,
jury
pools
of
no less
than
250
qualified prospective
jurors
from a file
of
all Pinellas County licensed drivers, identification card holders, and persons filing affidavits
pursuant
to
F.S. § 40.011 using the
method
described in this Plan.
D.
The
Clerk
shall cause
jury
venires to
be
selected from the
jury
pool using
the
method
described
in
this Plan, under supervision
of
a
judge
of
any court
of
record
or
the
Chief
Judge
or
his
designated representative pursuant
to
Fla. Stat. § 40.22
l.
3. Process for maintaining and updating prospective juror file:
A.
Each
calendar
quarter, the
DHSMV
sends
an
electronic file
of
licensed drivers and
identification card holders
to
the
Florida Association
of
Court Clerks and Comptrollers
(FCCC).
After
separating the records into multiple files based
on
"county
of
residence"
and excluding drivers and identification card holders under 18 years
of
age, the
FCCC
transmits
the
files to their respective
county's
Clerk
of
the
Circuit
Court
via
an email
attachment.
B. A software utility from Tyler Technologies
is
used to match and merge the
new
FCCC
file
with
existing
juror
records stored in the Enterprise Jury Management System (EJM),
an
application also from Tyler Technologies.
The
EJM
database includes
juror
personal
data
,
service history, and excusal status. Jurors
that
are temporarily
or
permanently excused are
flagged
as
ineligible but
not
deleted from the
databa
se.
The
records from the
FCCC
file
are
compared
to
the
existing
juror
records in
the
EJM
database using driver's license
number
or
identification number. Where
no
match is found against either driver's license
number
or
identification number, the
FCCC
records are matched to the
EJM
records using
the
last
name,
suffix, first name,
and
date
of
birth
as
a
set
of
matching criteria. Where a
match is found,
the
addresses are compared and,
if
different,
the
DHSMV
address replaces
the
EJM
address. Records
that
exist in
the
FCCC
file, but not the
EJM
database,
are
added
to
the
EJM
database. Records that exist in the
EJM
database,
but
not
the
FCCC
file,
are
flagged
as
inactive in the JMS database unless they were created
as
a result
of
the filing
of
an
affidavit pursuant to F.S. § 40.01
l.
Records that are flagged
as
inactive remain in the
EJM
database indefinitely
but
are bypassed by the system during the
jury
pool selection
process.
C. Maintenance is conducted
on
a regular basis to update E
JM
juror
records in accordance
with F.S. §
40
.022 (e.g., identifying convicted felons, deceased persons,
and
legally
Pinellas
County
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incapacitated persons, and processing them according to statute).
New
maintenance
procedures will
be
developed
and
employed to comply with other relevant statutes when
implemented, assuming that data and/or processes from external agencies are available.
D. Persons filing affidavits pursuant to F.S.
§ 40.011 will
be
added
to
the
EJM
database
through an on-line process within two working days upon receipt
of
the affidavit.
4. Juror Selection Process (Excluding Statewide Grand Jury):
A. The selection
of
candidates for weekly petit
jury
pools is done four to six weeks in
advance
of
the reporting date.
For
local Grand Jury, selection
of
candidates is done twice
a
year
, four to six weeks in advance
of
the reporting date.
B. The Jury Pool Manager/Grand Jury Clerk
or
their respective designees, will use EJM to
enter the jury pool location/jury district and the number
of
jurors
required (minimum
of
250
per
F.S. § 40.02) for the serve date specified. No other information is supplied by the
Clerk
or
designee, unless
jurors
have previously been deferred
to
the serve date specified
(refer to deferral process below). The
EJM
will select and
summons
the
number
of
jurors
requested. Data associated with the
se
lection
of
a
juror
pool (e.g., date, number
of
jurors
requested) is stored for future retrieval and reporting.
C.
Prior to invoking the process for randomly selecting jurors,
EJM
determines the number
of
jurors
previously deferred to the
serve
date specified.
If
any
jurors
are
deferred
to
that
date, the user will be notified
in
EJM
and will have the option to choose
how
man
y
of
those jurors should be included
in
this pool. EJM will randomly select the chosen number
of
deferred
jurors
to include in the pool from the total deferred records available for that
date. These
se
lected records will
be
included in the pool and the
number
will be
subtracted from the total
number
requested. The result is the
number
of
jurors
that
EJM
must
randomly select from the
juror
database.
D. The
EJM
random selection process
is
then invoked for each
jury
pool
requested. For this
process, EJM uses the Microsoft Enhanced Cryptographic Service Provider (CSP) which
implements a cryptographically strong random number generator that uses many
unpredictable inputs to create the random seed. By providing
many
unpredictable inputs
to generate the random seed,
th
e algorithm is able to generate
an
unpredictable, random
starting point for any random number generator. Microsoft's System Security
Cryptography
RNG
Crypto Service Provider is the most cryptographically strong random
number generator available
on
the Windows platform.
In Microsoft's CSP, the CryptGenRandom function uses the
same
random number
generator used by other security components. This allo
ws
numerous processes to
contribute to a system-wide seed. CryptoAPI stores an intermediate random seed with
every user. To form the seed for the random number
ge
nerator, a calling application
supplies bits
it
might have, for instance, mouse
or
keyboard
timing
input. Those bits are
then added to both the stored seed as well as various system data
and
user data such as the
process ID and thread ID, the system clock, the system time, the system counter, memory
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unty Juror Selection Plan
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status, free disk clusters, the hashed user environment block, and potentially many others.
EJM uses Microsoft's CSP
to
generate 512 random seeds which are then used to seed the
Mersenne Twister algorithm to produce the random stream for
jury
selection. The
Mersenne Twister algorithm (developed in 1997 and updated in 2002) was designed with
consideration
of
the flaws in various other generators. It is a twisted generalized feedback
shift register (TGFSR) and is considered to be the random number generator
of
choice for
many software applications. The "twist" is a transformation which assures
equidistribution
of
the generated numbers in 623 dimensions (linear congruential
generators can
at
best manage reasonable distribution in five dimensions). The Mersenne
Twister has the following desirable properties:
1)
It was designed to have a colossal period
of
2
19937
-
1 (a property proven by the
creators
of
the algorithm). This period explains the origin
of
the name: it is a
Mersenne prime, and some
of
the guarantees
of
the algorithm depend on internal
use
of
Mersenne primes.
In
practice, there is little reason to use larger ones.
2)
It has a very high order
of
dimensional equidistribution. This means,
by
default,
that there is negligible serial correlation between successive values in the output
sequence.
3)
It
is faster than all but the most statistically unsound generators.
4)
It is statistically random in all the bits
of
its output and passes the stringent Diehard
tests (a battery
of
statistical tests for measuring the quality
of
a set
of
random
numbers developed by George Marsaglia and considered one
of
the most stringent
statistical tests).
E.
After the random selection is complete, a jury summons, specifying the jury service
location, date, and time to appear is then produced and mailed to each individual sel
ec
ted
for service
at
least 14 days prior to the service date in accordance with F.S. § 40.23(1).
5. Summary
of
the
EJM
Random Selection Process
A. Use Microsoft's crypto random generator to generate 512 random values to be used as
random seeds.
B. Generate a n
ew
random stream using the Mersenne Twister seeded with the 512 random
numbers created in Step
A.
C. Select the next number from the stream created
in
Step B. in the range
of
1 to the total
number
of
jurors in the
jury
source ( or "master
")
li
st.
D. Get the individual from the jury source list that corresponds to the number created in Step C.
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E.
Evaluate whether
or
not the
juror
is eligible to serve. This is done by evaluating data fields
associated with each juror, specifically:
1)
"Last serve date" -
If
the juror has previously served (attended) within the last I year
of
the serve date for which the selection is being made,
or
if
the juror has previously
been selected but did not serve in the last I year from the date they were
due
to
serve, the individual is skipped (ineligible) because he/she has either served or was
scheduled to serve within the year prior to the date
of
the pool for which the
selection is being made.
2) "Permanent disqualification" -
If
the
juror
record is marked as a "permanent
disqualification," the
juror
is skipped (ineligible).
3) "Undeliverable" -
If
the juror record is marked "undeliverable" the juror
is
skipped
(ineligible). Undeliverable status is used in the juror record for various reasons
including but not limited to:
1.
Address returned during the Source List Update as a bad address for the
individual as reported to USPS and run through the National Change
of
Address system.
11. Jurors who have a previous summons date and are no longer included on the
current state list.
111.
Return mail to the jury office indicating that no forwarding address exists for
that
juror
F.
If
the individual selected is eligible for jury service, go to Step
G.
If
the individual is not
eligible for service, do not add the individual to the pool and return to Step C. above.
G.
Add the
juror
to the pool selection, increment counter, set "last serve date" to the date
of
jury pool for which
juror
was selected, and update
juror
status to "selected." (Note: juror
status remains as "selected" until such time that the
juror
actually serves, then the juror
status is updated to "served.") The jury pool selection process also includes the storing
of
the seed values in the
jury
pool record. This allows the randomness
of
the selection process
to be verified.
H.
If
the total number
of
required jurors has been selected, then end
or
go to Step C.
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