Court deals with jury innovation proposals.

Since its creation in 1999, the Jury Innovations Committee of the Supreme Court's Judicial Management Council has crusaded for reforms to empower jurors beyond the traditional role of passive triers of fact.

They envisioned trials where intellectually involved jurors could take notes, ask questions of witnesses (in writing with court approval), and discuss evidence in a group before deliberations.

Four years later, what they got was not nearly so bold--at least, not yet.

On October 17, Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Harry Lee Anstead issued an administrative order on "the most comprehensive review and thorough evaluation of Florida's jury system in the history of the slate," approving 18 of 48 recommendations and referring 22 for further study. The remaining eight recommendations were declined.

Absent from the definitely approved list were recommendations the committee's chair, Third District Court of Appeal Judge Robert Shevin, had described as "the most cutting-edge" and "the most important one"--allowing jurors in civil trials to discuss the testimony as a group before actual deliberations begin.

"The majority does not favor but refers to Civil Procedure Rules Committee and Civil Jury Instruction Committee for consideration," Anstead's order said of that recommendation.

Other suggestions that Would propel jurors to play a more active role in the decision-making process were also referred for further study. Allowing questions by jurors, as well as permitting note-taking by jurors, were innovations referred to the Rules of Judicial Administration and Civil and Criminal Procedure Rules Committees and jury instruction committees for consideration.

But Judge Shevin expressed no disappointment in the lack of definitive approval on many of the committee's most revolutionary recommendations.

"I wasn't disturbed by the referrals, because I think it was the appropriate thing to do," Judge Shevin said. "We'll see what the various committees have to say about them. I was generally pleased with the court's final report. They only declined to approve eight out of 48 recommendations, and a lot were cutting-edge."

The most "hotly debated issue," Shevin said at oral arguments February 4, 2002, was whether to reduce or eliminate peremptory challenges, when lawyers get to dismiss prospective jurors from serving without giving a reason. In the past, the justices noted, peremptory challenges were abused to exclude racial groups and others from serving...