San Bernardino County Superior Court jurors received a big pay raise this week as part of a two-year pilot program that increases daily compensation from $15 to $100 per day and significantly raises mileage reimbursements.
San Bernardino joins Superior Courts in Alameda, El Dorado, Fresno, Imperial, Monterey and Shasta counties in the program that began Sept. 1 and continues until early 2026 or until funding is exhausted.
Funded by Assembly Bill 1981, which became law in 2022, and administered by the Judicial Council of California, the program will explore whether increases in juror compensation and mileage reimbursement rates improve juror diversity and participation.
The groundbreaking increase in juror per diems marks the first enhancement in two decades.
“We are honored to participate in the AB 1981 Jury Pilot Program, which represents a significant step forward in our commitment to ensuring that our jury pools reflect the diversity of our community,” San Bernardino County Presiding Judge Lisa M. Rogan said in a statement.
In addition to the 566% increase in per diem juror pay, the program nearly doubled juror mileage reimbursements from 34 cents to 67 cents per mile roundtrip.
After the pilot program concludes, the Judicial Council will provide a report to the state Legislature describing findings and information for promoting juror diversity.
The Judicial Council and the National Center for State Courts, a nonprofit organization focused on improving the administration of justice, are providing access to an online survey to all individuals summoned for jury service at the participating courts.
According to a 2022 report from the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee, lawmakers and state courts have long sought to boost the diversity of trial juries, which tend to be skewed toward “whiter, older, and more affluent” jurors.
“To that end, since 2018, this committee has heard and approved legislation aimed at diversifying the pool of potential jurors by expanding the lists utilized to summon potential jurors and eliminating barriers for formerly incarcerated persons fromserving on juries,” the report states.
However, despite decades of evidence that cost pressures have forced judges to dismiss through hardship waivers many lower-income jurors, little has been done to address one of the main barriers, which the report identified as potential costs and lost wages associated with service.
Supporters of AB 1981, which include the California Public Defenders Association and California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, maintain that providing financial assistance to trial jurors will diversify juries and ensure they better reflect thedemographics of California.
“Prospective jurors should not be excluded from jury service due to their lack of the financial resources to afford transportation to and from the courthouse,” the California Public Defenders Association wrote to the state Senate Judiciary Committee in 2022.
“We hope that this legislation will be another step toward the goal of having California’s trials decided by jurors who reflect the rich diversity of the California communities where the controversies arise, giving life to the principal embodied in the United States and California Constitutions, that an individual will be tried by a jury of their peers.”
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