Orange County judges hold luncheon to thank jurors for serving during pandemic  

About 75 former jurors were thanked Thursday for serving during the coronavirus pandemic.

Orange County Superior Court Judge M. Marc Kelly held a lunch for the jurors as part of Juror Appreciation Week.

“This is our second Juror Appreciation Week so we started thinking we’ve got to do something more than just put a banner up in the courthouse so we came up with this luncheon,” Kelly told City News Service. “We did it years ago, but we stopped for COVID. We resurrected it this year and just wanted to do it as a thank you.”

At Thursday’s lunch, “We had jurors who showed up from June of 2020, and 2021 and 2022, and a few from this year,” Kelly said.

About 15 judges also participated in the event.

“Orange County jurors were amazing” during the pandemic, Kelly said. “We never had less than 60% turnout rate. Just in 2020 when other counties were doing zero trials we did 364.”

The county held 526 trials in 2021, and 676 last year. So far this year there have been 225 through the end of March.

The county has done about 1,800 trials since June of 2020, Kelly said.

“That’s quite incredible,” he said.

Three of the jurors at Thursday’s event gave testimonials about how reluctant they were to serve, but were thankful they did it, Kelly said.

“They all talked about what a positive experience they had,” he said.

It wasn’t easy during the pandemic, the judge said.

“We had to navigate a lot of tumultuous waters to make it happen,’’ Kelly said. “We had some witnesses testifying remotely. We had to live-stream because we couldn’t open up to media. There were a lot of hurdles to overcome, but you know what, we did it. This was a thank you to the jurors for hanging strong during the pandemic and keeping the wheels of justice turning.”