Panel fears the declining number of jury trials may undermine public confidence.

The declining number of jury trials in both state and federal courts and in civil and criminal cases can undermine public confidence in the judicial system and decrease the skills of lawyers and judges when they actually do have a trial.

Better funding for the courts, internships and better training for law students, and expedited procedures to make trying cases more cost effective could help offset that trend, HHbk according to The Florida Bar's Special Committee to Study the Decline of COHEN Jury Trials.

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The committee was appointed in 2010 by past President Mayanne Downs to look at the trend of fewer jury trials and see what impact that decrease has on both the court system and citizens. The committee submitted its report to the Bar Board of Governors last month, and board consideration will occur during its January 27 meeting.

The committee, co-chaired by board member Jay Cohen and former board member David Rothman, compiled a variety of national and state statistics and reports on jury trials. It found that over past decades while the real number of cases filed has increased, those that are resolved by jury trials has declined both as a percentage and in real numbers. Those statistics apply to both state and federal cases in both civil and criminal dockets.

The percentage of cases going to trial did hold steady in county courts, the committee found, but those were overall a very small number of cases. With the exception of DUI, far less than 1 percent of the civil and criminal county court cases go to jurors.

Among the committee's findings:

* Between 1962 and 2002, the annual number of federal civil dispositions rose from 258,876 to 501,320, but the number resolved by jury trials declined from 5,802 to 4,569. The number tried declined from 11.8 percent to 1.8 percent.

* During the same time, federal criminal filings went from 33,110 to 76,827, while the number resolved at trials declined from 5,097 (15 percent) to 3,573 (4.7 percent).

* For Florida's circuit courts, the fiscal year 1986-87 saw 155,407 civil dispositions with 2,413 (1.6 percent) going to jury trials. By the 2009-10 fiscal year, there were 401,463 civil dispositions, but only 879 (0.2 percent) were resolved by jury trials.

* Over the same period for circuit criminal cases, there were 130,575 criminal dispositions and 4,091 jury trials (3.1 percent) in 1986-87 and 200,710 dispositions and 4,112 jury trials (2.1 percent) in 2009-10.

* An ABA study...