The District Clerk’s Office plays a major role in jury service, but it does not make every decision in the process. In Harris County, jury service is a shared responsibility involving the District Clerk’s Office, the District Court Judges’ Jury Committee, the courts, and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, which means appearance and participation rates should be understood in that broader context.

This review focuses on the years 2015 through 2025. It also explains why some rates tell a better story than others, why the pandemic years should be treated differently, and why demographic comparisons must be handled carefully.

How jury service works

The District Clerk’s Office handles much of the administration behind jury service, including creating summonses, sending them, managing summoned jurors, and handing jurors off to the courts when they report. The Jury Committee, which is made up of district court judges, determine how many jurors are called and make key decisions such as cancellations during emergencies or other special circumstances. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office also supports the process by helping share some summonsing costs and by providing officers to assist with escorting jurors from the jury plaza to courtrooms.

That matters because public discussion sometimes treats jury appearance rates as if they reflect the actions of only one office. They do not. Jury service depends on administrative systems, court needs, judicial decisions, public response, and the practical realities of getting hundreds of thousands of people from a summons to a courtroom.

Appearance rate

A jury appearance rate measures how many summoned residents actually appear for service, but even that number needs context. The formula used in the Harris County District Clerk’s office data is:

This formula matters because it would be misleading to simply divide appeared by all summonses sent. If jurors were cancelled by this office before they ever had to come to the Jury Plaza, they should not be counted the same way as people who were still expected to report.

From 2015 through 2025, appearance rates moved from 24.9 percent in 2015 to 30.3 percent in 2016, 23.9 percent in 2017, 19.8 percent in 2018, and 25.0 percent in 2019. The pandemic years were clear outliers, with appearance rates dropping to 8.9 percent in 2020 and 10.2 percent in 2021. After that, the rate recovered somewhat, reaching 12.6 percent in 2022, 13.6 percent in 2023, 14.4 percent in 2024, and 18.5 percent in 2025. We still have a long way to go to get back to pre-Covid rates.

Those percentages can look discouraging at first glance, but the larger pattern is important. Post-pandemic, the number of people summoned rose sharply, from 430,836 in 2021 to 803,218 in 2022, 933,867 in 2023, 1,000,974 in 2024, and 926,385 in 2025. At the same time, the number of people who actually appeared remained in a much narrower band, from 86,854 in 2022 to 108,339 in 2023, 125,330 in 2024, and 125,657 in 2025.

In other words, Harris County was summoning far more people than before, but the number who physically appeared did not rise at the same pace. That naturally pushed the appearance rate downward, even in years when the county still had more than 100,000 people appear for service. It also meant higher printing, mailing, and staff costs, while burning through the jury wheel faster and increasing the likelihood that residents would be called more frequently.

Response rate and “true participation”

Appearance rate is useful, but it does not tell the whole story of participation. A better measure of how residents respond to jury service is the response rate, because it captures more than just those who physically appear.

The Harris County District Clerk’s office defines response rate this way:

This measure is broader because it counts residents who responded to the summons and were either exempted or cancelled before reporting, in addition to those who actually appeared. It also removes undeliverable mail from the denominator, which matters because a summons that never reaches a resident is not the same as a summons that was received and ignored.

For that reason, response rate may be the best way to think about the county’s “true participation rate.” It still is not perfect, but it gives a fuller picture of how many residents interacted with the process after receiving a summons.

From 2015 through 2025, response rates were 73.4 percent in 2015, 59.3 percent in 2016, 63.5 percent in 2017, 69.8 percent in 2018, and 51.4 percent in 2019. The rate then moved to 63.0 percent in 2020, fell to 40.3 percent in 2021, and recovered to 50.6 percent in 2022, 49.9 percent in 2023, 50.8 percent in 2024, and 62.1 percent in 2025.

That trend shows two things at once. First, 2020 and 2021 should not be treated like ordinary years because pandemic operations changed how courts functioned and how jurors were managed, including special NRG jury operations reflected in the demographic data notes. Second, 2025 stands out as a year of improvement, with the highest response rate since 2020 and a notable jump from the three prior years clustered around 50 percent.

Our data also shows how no-response levels remained high in recent years. No-response rates were 49.4 percent in 2022, 50.1 percent in 2023, 49.2 percent in 2024, and 52.6 percent in 2025, which means a large share of summonses still did not produce any response at all. That is one reason the response rate is so important: it highlights not just who showed up, but how many residents engaged with the process at all.

Pandemic years and outliers

The years 2020 and 2021 need to be read with caution. In 2020, only 330,989 residents were summoned and 26,343 appeared, far below pre-pandemic levels, while 2021 still reflected major disruption with 430,836 summoned and 37,916 appearances. Our data also notes special jury operations at NRG during the COVID period and makes clear that some jury data during that time was captured manually before broader e-Juror implementation.

That does not make the pandemic numbers unusable. It simply means they should be treated as a break in the trend rather than a normal benchmark for policy or public behavior. Any serious review of Harris County jury participation has to acknowledge that those years were operationally unusual.

Pre-e-Juror and post-e-Juror data

Another reason the data must be read carefully is that not every category was tracked the same way across the full period. Our data notes that some information, especially racial data, was not thoroughly tracked before better systems were put in place and that data collection improved after the development of e-Juror, the county’s electronic registration system.

That means the years before and after e-Juror should not be treated as identical from a data-quality standpoint. Better tracking does not automatically mean better participation, but it does mean Harris County now has a stronger foundation for understanding who is responding, who is appearing, and where communication and outreach may still need improvement.

The same is true for demographic self-reporting. Even improved data collection has limits because these categories depend on jurors reporting their own information, and some residents may decline to answer or may select “Other,” which can undercount or overcount some groups. That is why any demographic comparison in this article should be treated as a useful estimate, not a perfect measurement.

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Racial and demographic trends

The racial jury data in Harris County is self-reported, but it still provides an important view of who has been appearing for service over time. Looking at the total historical data, reported jury participants were 49.2 percent White, 16.3 percent Black/African American, 24.0 percent Hispanic, 8.3 percent Asian, and 2.2 percent Other.

Annualized racial data prior to 2024 can read incorrect due to reporting errors. However, the more recent annual data with corrections show that those percentages have changed over time. White jurors made up 48.2 percent of reported participants in 2022, 45.8 percent in 2023, 46.8 percent in 2024, and 46.1 percent in 2025. This is not due to declining numbers, but rather to increased percentages in our minority communities. Black/African American jurors were 15.3 percent in 2022, 17.2 percent in 2023, 17.0 percent in 2024, and 16.51 percent in 2025, while Hispanic jurors were 24.9 percent, 26.1 percent, 26.1 percent, and 26.6 percent over those same four years.

Asian jurors accounted for 8.5 percent of reported participants in 2022, 8.8 percent in 2023, 8.9 percent in 2024, and 9.4 percent in 2025. The “Other” category was 3.1 percent in 2022, 2.0 percent in 2023, 1.2 percent in 2024, and 1.3 percent in 2025.

For a public-facing comparison point, the best available benchmark in this article is the estimated number of Harris County citizens over 18. That benchmark lists the county’s adult citizen population as 34.8 percent White, 22.3 percent Black/African American, 32.8 percent Hispanic, 7.1 percent Asian, and 3.0 percent Other. It is a useful reference point, but it is not a perfect measure of jury eligibility because the jury-eligible population is narrower than the full adult citizen population.

That limitation matters. Not every adult citizen is eligible for jury service, and this benchmark does not fully account for citizenship, exemptions, disqualifications, address accuracy, or other practical barriers that can affect who ultimately appears. For that reason, the fairest way to use these numbers is not to declare any one group as simply overrepresented or underrepresented, but to describe relative participation trends and use those trends to improve outreach across all communities in Harris County.

What the data suggest

Taken together, the numbers show that appearance rate alone can be misleading if it is separated from the larger context. Harris County has been summoning many more people in the years after the pandemic, but the number who physically appear has remained much more stable than the summons totals themselves. That helps explain why appearance rates can stay low even when more than 100,000 residents still report for service in a year.

The numbers also show why response rate may be the stronger public metric. It captures residents who engaged with the jury process even if they did not end up physically appearing, and it adjusts for undeliverable summonses in a way that better reflects real participation behavior. By that measure, Harris County’s 2025 response rate of 62.1 percent suggests meaningful improvement over the three prior years, even though the appearance rate remained below pre-pandemic highs.

Finally, the data show the value of better systems. During Clerk Burgess’ administration, improved tracking, online options, updated materials, and more focused outreach have given the county a better ability to understand jury participation and explain it clearly to the public. That does not mean the work is finished, but it does mean Harris County is in a better position to see where participation is strong, where it is lagging, and how communication can improve.

Conclusion

Jury service works best when residents from across Harris County take part. The data from 2015 through 2025 show that participation cannot be judged by a single number alone, especially when summons volume, undeliverable mail, cancellations, exemptions, pandemic disruption, and data quality all affect the final picture.

That is why a fuller review matters. It helps the public understand what appearance rate actually measures, why response rate may tell a more complete story, and why demographic trends must be handled carefully and honestly. It also creates a stronger foundation for future outreach, clearer public education, and better decision-making across the jury system.

In recent years, Harris County has taken steps to improve how jury service is understood and managed, including better tracking, online options, updated public-facing materials, and outreach efforts tied to jury participation and civic trust. More work remains, but better data gives the county a better starting point. And for residents, the message is simple: answering a jury summons matters because broad participation helps support a fairer and more representative justice system for everyone.

You can go here to learn more about recent jury innovations:

Chapter V: First Community Outreach Initiative: “Stand for Justice”

As the District Clerk’s Office modernized the mechanics of jury service, Clerk Burgess also knew that changing systems would not be enough on their own. Harris County residents had to hear, in plain language, why showing up still mattered. In February 2021, she launched a countywide outreach campaign under the message “Stand for Justice – Participate in Jury Service,” aimed especially at increasing participation among African American and Hispanic residents. The goal was to connect a constitutional right that can feel distant. Her team connected the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a jury of one’s peers with the everyday choices people make when a summons arrives in the mail.

The campaign combined traditional and digital platforms. Three billboards went up in targeted areas of the county: one in south Houston at the South 610 Loop and Scott Road, one in the north at Highway 59 and Crosstimbers, and one in the east near I‑10 and Federal Road. Each featured a diverse group of people raising their right hands as if being sworn in. Residents might not know it from the freeway, but everyone in the photo, including Clerk Burgess, was a District Clerk’s Office employee who volunteered to participate. On average, each billboard generated about 600,000 impressions per week, reinforcing the same message that appeared in social media posts, a public service announcement, and advertising in local minority‑owned media outlets in English and Spanish.

“The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to a jury of one’s peers. Increased participation and juries that are more diverse can help our justice system to be more fair and equitable. This outreach campaign is a call to action,” District Clerk Burgess said at the campaign launch. She emphasized that her administration was “committed to educate and encourage the public to show up for their neighbors when they are called to jury service,” tying the idea of answering a summons directly to standing up for fellow community members. The PSA echoed that theme, describing jury service as a cornerstone of the justice system and a way for individuals to empower both themselves and their neighborhoods.

Beyond mass media, the office deepened its face‑to‑face engagement. Her Communications and Outreach staff expanded tours of the District Clerk’s Office and the courthouse for high school and college students, using those visits to walk young people through how a jury is selected and what it looks like to serve. Clerk Burgess and members of her team gave presentations at schools, community events, and civic gatherings explaining in clear terms how answering a jury summons helps ensure that others receive a fair trial. This was all happening during the time she was preparing recommendations for Commissioners Court based on a countywide survey, focusing on raising juror pay and providing free parking for those selected to serve, so that the call to “stand for justice” would be backed by concrete policy changes.

Chapter VI: Rebuilding Trust Amid Headlines and Hard Choices

Throughout these changes, District Clerk Marilyn Burgess and her team worked in a climate where public trust in institutions was under strain and media attention often focused on crises rather than quiet improvements. The pandemic had forced sudden shutdowns, moved jury calls to an arena, and raised understandable questions about safety in public spaces. At the same time, historic disparities in who appeared for jury duty made some residents skeptical that the system truly reflected them. Instead of sidestepping those challenges, the District Clerk’s Office tried to address them through consistent actions: keeping core services available online, communicating clearly about changes, and showing the public how and why the process was evolving.

That approach can be seen in the way the office manages the “jury wheel,” the database from which potential jurors are randomly selected. Under Clerk Burgess, Harris County reconstituted its jury wheel in 2022 and again in 2024, updating addresses and adding or removing residents as required. The 2022 reset produced a pool of 2,724,342 potential jurors; by 2024, that number had grown to 2,752,109. At each ceremony, Clerk Burgess stood alongside judges and the sheriff as they electronically reset the system and signed documents, with judges publicly emphasizing that jurors are “indispensable” to the justice system and urging residents who receive a summons to appear and serve. Press materials connected these technical steps to broader goals: making juries more diverse so they better reflect the county’s population, and making service more convenient with online pre‑registration, free parking, and improved amenities.

Partners across the system also helped narrate this work. Judges like Robert Schaffer and Kristen Hawkins spoke openly about collaborating “side by side” with the District Clerk’s Office to keep jury selection as safe as possible during the pandemic and to seat 100 in‑person juries at NRG Arena. National experts at the NCSC praised Clerk Burgess’s reforms as practical ways to eliminate barriers to service and recognize the economic realities that keep some citizens from participating. Local leaders, including Commissioner Lesley Briones, publicly linked the 2023 jury‑pay increases to reducing financial hardship and making juries more representative. Each of these voices offered residents another perspective on the same message: that behind the headlines, many people were working together to keep the promise of a fair jury trial.

Clerk Burgess has been clear that the work is not finished. The office continues to track participation, advocate for further pay improvements, and refine its outreach so that more residents understand both their rights and responsibilities when it comes to jury service. As she approaches the end of her term in 2026, she points to the systems now in place—e‑Juror, higher pay, expanded community education, and a regularly refreshed jury wheel—as tools designed to outlast any one administration. The aim is that, years from now, when a Harris County resident opens a jury summons, they will see not just an obligation, but a process that has been built to include them, support them, and reflect the community they call home.

Chapter VII: Looking Ahead: Jury Duty, Real Impact

The changes made under District Clerk Marilyn Burgess’s leadership have altered what jury duty looks and feels like in Harris County, but they are also meant to shape how residents think about their own role in the justice system. A resident who receives a summons today can pre‑register online, get clear reminders by email and text, park for free, grab a cup of coffee, and be paid more fairly for their time than jurors who were called several years ago. Behind those details is a larger principle: if the system asks people to shoulder a serious civic responsibility, it should do everything it can to make that responsibility accessible.

For Clerk Burgess, that principle will carry forward through stories as well as systems. The District Clerk’s Office is developing a “Jury Duty, Real Impact” series to highlight the experiences of jurors, court staff, and community members whose lives intersect in the jury room. Those stories, along with fireplace‑style conversations where Burgess reflects on events and innovations during her tenure, will offer residents a closer look at how the abstract promise of a “jury of one’s peers” becomes real in Harris County. They will also provide a way to continue the conversation about participation, diversity, and fairness long after the immediate headlines have moved on.

As the end of 2026 approaches and District Clerk Marilyn Burgess’s time in office comes to an end, the legacy of her work on jury service is less about any single award or announcement and more about a set of changes that are now part of the county’s everyday practice. However, there is still room to grow. Appearance rates can improve further, services can be more efficient, and outreach can reach more neighborhoods, but the foundations are noticeably different from when she took office in 2019. For the resident holding a summons, that means a clearer invitation: come serve, knowing that your time is valued, and your voice is needed. Let ensure that when your neighbors come to court, they receive the fair trial they have been promised.

Chapter III: Modernizing the Experience: Online Tools and the e‑Juror System

Even before the pandemic, Harris County’s jury system depended heavily on paper summons and phone calls, making it hard to communicate quickly with jurors or adjust when court dockets changed. For many residents, that meant uncertainty. They might not know where to park, what to wear, or whether their panel would actually be needed on the day they took off work. As the county emerged from the first waves of COVID‑19, Clerk Burgess saw an opportunity to do more than simply restart the old process. She wanted to rebuild it around better communication and a respect for people’s time.

The result was e‑Juror, an electronic summoning system conceived and developed in‑house by the District Clerk’s IT team. Under the new system, prospective jurors who receive a summons are instructed to pre‑register online or call the jury staff to pre‑register by phone. During that process, they can claim qualifying exemptions or disqualifications, provide an email address and cell phone number, and receive an assigned date to appear. If that date does not work, they can reschedule immediately and get a second date instead of waiting on hold or mailing in a request. In the week leading up to service, they receive reminder emails, and the day before they appear, they also receive a text message.

Those changes may seem simple, but they have had an incredible impact. From May through October 2021, 93% of the residents who pre‑registered through e‑Juror and were assigned a date did show up for jury service. For the District Clerk’s Jury Team, the system also made it possible to predict how many jurors would appear at each call and to cancel or reschedule when they could see that more people were coming than needed on a given day. That reduced wasted trips for residents and made operations more efficient at a time when courtrooms were still adapting to health protocols.

In December 2021, these efforts earned national recognition. The National Center for State Courts awarded Marilyn Burgess the G. Thomas Munsterman Award for Jury Innovation, citing e‑Juror, her advocacy for higher jury pay, and amenities like free parking and coffee as concrete steps to eliminate barriers to service.

She also noted that the office’s use of technology “shows respect for the wellbeing of jurors.” Clerk Burgess, accepting the award at the renovated Jury Assembly Building, described modernization as a priority “since I ran for office” and credited the Jury, IT, and Communications teams for the gains in participation.

Those amenities have since become part of the everyday experience for jurors. With support from Commissioners Court, the District Clerk’s Office provides free parking and free coffee to residents who answer their summons, and has offered meal vouchers during key periods to make long days at the courthouse a little easier. Later jury‑wheel ceremonies in 2022 and 2024 highlighted these changes, noting that Harris County now maintains a jury database of more than 2.7 million potential jurors while also making service more convenient through online pre‑registration and improved support on site. For someone arriving at the Jury Assembly Building today, the process is more digital, more predictable, and more focused on removing small but meaningful barriers that once discouraged people from serving.

Chapter IV: Making Service Fairer, Historic Jury Pay Increases

Modern tools and better communication can make jury service more convenient, but they cannot solve a deeper problem on their own. For many Harris County residents, a day at the courthouse still means a day without pay. For many years, jurors in Harris County received $6 for the first day of service and $40 for subsequent days. That low rate posed a particular burden for hourly workers, caregivers, and people without savings, and it contributed to the same disparities that showed up in the jury participation data.

Since taking office in 2019, Marilyn Burgess has pushed to change that. Early in her tenure, she proposed increasing juror compensation from $6 to $50 for the first day and from $40 to $80 for subsequent days, a plan that was tabled while the county focused on overcoming the COVID‑19 pandemic. At the same time, she gathered data to show why higher pay mattered, documenting that from January 1, 2021 through December 31, 2022, African Americans and Hispanics were significantly underrepresented among those who appeared for jury service compared to their share of the county’s population. Her argument was straightforward: if Harris County wanted juries that reflected its racial and socioeconomic diversity, it had to pay people more fairly for their time.

In 2023, that long‑running advocacy led to a historic increase in juror compensation. On September 1, a statewide raise approved by the Texas Legislature went into effect, taking the first‑day payment from $6 to $20 and increasing pay for subsequent days from $40 to $58.

She also added that she would continue working with Commissioners Court to supplement the local portion of jury pay. On the same day, the county also raised the age threshold to claim an exemption from jury service, from 70 to 75 years old. This came with much criticism, but it aligns the system with an older, more active population. For those who serve with difficulty, the DCO Jury staff and the Communications department continued their work on educating residents of their options.

Less than a month later, Harris County went further. On September 19, 2023, Commissioners Court voted to raise the first‑day rate again, from $20 to $30, effective October 1. That local increase built on the state’s action and represented an additional investment of approximately $1.2 million, according to Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones. “Showing up for jury duty can pose an insurmountable financial hardship for individuals who cannot afford to miss work or pay for childcare,” Briones said, explaining that higher pay would help ensure juries “more fully reflect the diversity of our community.” Clerk Burgess called the increase “a significant stride towards fostering and promoting diversity within the juries of Harris County.”

Alongside higher pay, the District Clerk’s Office also modernized how jurors are paid. Beginning in September 2023, the office, in partnership with County Treasurer Carla Wyatt, rolled out CourtFunds Pay Cards, a debit‑card‑based system that replaces paper checks. Jurors’ cards are scanned at check‑in and activated about two business days after service, and they can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. “Some jurors may not have a bank account and being paid with a check at the end of their service may not be the most convenient option for them,” Clerk Burgess said. “These pay cards make jury service payments more efficient and convenient.” District Clerk Marilyn Burgess’ continued advocacy was recognized again, as she received an award as the Public Official of the Year (2023), bestowed by the University of Houston’s Master of Public Administration (MPA) Program.

Taken together with e‑Juror and outreach campaigns like “Stand for Justice – Participate in Jury Service,” these changes send a consistent message: Harris County expects a lot from its jurors, and it is working to meet them halfway. By raising pay, speeding up payments, and addressing decades‑old inequities in who can afford to serve, District Clerk Marilyn Burgess and her team have tied the idea of a “fair trial” not only to what happens in the courtroom, but also to how the community is asked (and enabled)—to participate in justice.

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Chapter I: Why Jury Service Had to Change

For most people in Harris County, jury duty is the closest they will ever get to the inside of a courtroom. For years, the our system asked a lot from Harris County’s residents without giving much back. Historically jury participation has been low nationally with some data suggesting 20%, and most of the time the people who did show up did not reflect the county they were being asked to judge.

Although demographic data for residents who are eligible to serve can be tricky to pinpoint, the gaps we can see shed light on a real issue and they translate into real trials where the jury box does not look like the community in the gallery. Low pay for jurors, logistical hurdles, and a system that relied heavily on paper notices made it harder for working families, caregivers, and people in under‑resourced neighborhoods to say yes when a summons arrived. At the same time, public attention tended to focus on negative headlines or high‑profile cases, not the everyday work of summoning jurors, keeping courts open, and making sure everyone, from victims to defendants, had access to a fair trial.

When Marilyn Burgess took office as Harris County District Clerk in 2019, she made it a priority to modernize the way the county calls and supports jurors. Her goal was straightforward but ambitious: make jury service more convenient and more equitable so that more residents could afford to serve and more juries would reflect the county they represent. That meant using technology to communicate better, improving the experience once people arrived at the Jury Assembly Building, and working with state and local leaders to raise jury pay for the first time in decades.

Today, as she serves her final term and prepares to leave office in 2026, Burgess points to jury service as one of the clearest examples of how modernization can strengthen trust in the justice system. The work began well before the pandemic—but it was the unprecedented disruptions of 2020 that tested whether the District Clerk’s Office could keep the promise of a jury trial alive when almost everything else shut down.

Chapter II: Crisis and Continuity: Navigating COVID‑19

In March 2020, COVID‑19 transformed jury service from a routine civic duty into a public health challenge. A March 19 order from District Courts Administration suspended jury service, and county leaders moved quickly to limit gatherings in county buildings to ten people or fewer. Within days, the Harris County District Clerk’s Office closed its counters to the public in order to help slow the spread of the virus.

Shutting the doors did not mean shutting down the courts. “Almost all of our services are available online, and the public will be able to call and email our offices as well,” Clerk Burgess said as the office announced the suspension of in‑person services. She noted that the District Clerk’s Office reduced to 16% onsite staff and issued 185 computers so employees could work remotely from home, ensuring that e‑Filing, e‑Issuance, online payments, and records access remained available. For jurors, the message was clear: if you had a summons through the end of March, you did not need to appear or reschedule while the courts reassessed next steps.

Behind the scenes, Clerk Burgess and her team turned immediately to the question that would define the next phase of the pandemic: how to restart jury trials safely so the justice system would not grind to a halt? Working with judges, county engineers, public health officials, and the Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation, the District Clerk’s Office helped develop a plan to resume jury calls at the NRG Arena, where there was room to space out hundreds of chairs and continuously sanitize the facility. Grand jury calls resumed at NRG on July 6, 2020, and petit jury calls followed on August 24.

By April 2021, Harris County had seated its 100th jury panel at NRG Arena. The Honorable Judge Hazel B. Jones of the 174th Criminal District Court presided over that landmark panel, and partner judges publicly thanked the District Clerk’s Office for making the process as safe as possible.

Judge Kristen Hawkins, who chaired the Board of Harris County District Judges at the time, praised the “countless hours” spent by county agencies and staff to seat 100 in‑person juries “during a global pandemic.”

Those months at NRG also became a proving ground for modernization. The District Clerk’s IT team deployed the first phase of e‑Juror, a new system that allowed summoned residents to pre‑register for jury service online, claim COVID‑19 concerns, and receive email and text reminders about their day of service. The ability to predict how many jurors would actually show up (and cancel or reschedule when cases settled late) became essential to operating safely during the pandemic and laid the groundwork for a more responsive jury system going forward.

As the county moved from the emergency phase of COVID‑19, District Clerk Marilyn Burgess began expanding community outreach beyond billboards and press releases. The District Clerk’s Office increased tours for high schools and presentations at college campuses to show how the courts work from the inside and what it means to serve on a jury. Clerk Burgess and members of her outreach team also gave presentations in different regions of Harris County explaining why answering a summons is a key part of giving neighbors a fair trial. These conversations ended with a simple message: the right to a jury trial still depends on ordinary people showing up.

The lessons from NRG Arena and those outreach efforts shaped the next wave of reforms: modern electronic summoning, better communication before and after a summons, and a renewed push to make jury service financially realistic for more Harris County residents.

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