WAUPACA COUNTY POST

September 22, 1921

 

Women Jurors to Figure in Waupaca Co.

Of Three Hundred Names in Jury Commissioners’ List One Hundred Thirteen are Women

 

            J.M. Ware of Waupaca, Julius Spearbraker of Clintonville, E.L.Darling of Manawa, Waupaca County jury commissioners, met in the office of Clerk of Court, Ing. Ovrom, Friday the 16^th inst. to select the names of suitable and available persons to serve on the jury at the November term of court. Three hundred such names are in the box from which the panel of thirty-six names are drawn which will be published before the opening of the November term.

            Since the entire list of three hundred names is seldom exhausted in the initial and subsequent drawings during the term for any exigencies that may occur, there were as usual some names left over when the commissioners began their work of selection of names last Friday.  For obvious reasons the names in the old list were all names of men.

            Since the law now makes women eligible for jury duty, it was decided to place in the box this fall a goodly number of names of women.  Of the three hundred names of available jury timber, there are one hundred eighty-seven names of men and one hundred thirteen names of women.  Some of these names may remain for years in the jury box, which will stand on the clerk’s desk during the session of court, ever ready to be availed when a special venire is needed.

            It would be a marvel if all the hundred thirteen slips of paper containing the name of a Waupaca county woman eligible for jury duty should be missed at the drawing to be made next month.  It would be quite as strange if names of other women should not be drawn for the special venire that will be necessary for the sheriff to notify between closing hours of the first or second day of court and the opening of court at nine o’clock next morning, it is this special venier, when the sheriff will hurriedly call and read the warrant that will require the person so notified to appear in court at nine o’clock next morning to serve as juror, that is liable to upset the plans of the dutiful housewife living as she may thirty miles from the county seat.  These hurry-up calls will not all fail to the lot of available women jurors.  Each term of court for several years it has been necessary to call upon men to serve in place of those who were excused from serving on the regular venire and it is very likely that men will share the surprises of those who have been accorded the honor of being deemed worthy of jury service by the careful, astute jury commissioners.