Performance Measures

Summons

Typically, the Washtenaw County Circuit Court will summons 170 jurors for each Monday. There are weeks that we call-in all 170 of those jurors and also some weeks we do not call-in any jurors because all of our jury trials for that week have been resolved. The actual number of jurors we call-in each week is solely dependent upon how many cases are expected to go to jury trial on a particular Monday morning.

Jury Numbers

When a jury is needed on a Monday morning, the jury supervisor sends anywhere between 20 to 50 jurors to a courtroom, depending on the type of case that is being heard. Prospective jurors can be removed from a panel by either side of a case for a variety of reasons. Felony criminal cases will normally keep a jury panel of 14 members until both sides have rested their case and it is time for the jury to deliberate. Once deliberations begin, two of the jurors will be excused so that 12 of the 14 are finding the verdict for that case. Mental Health, Juvenile and Civil cases will keep a panel of 8 jurors and do not typically call off any of the jurors at time of deliberation.

Kept Revenue

This graph represents annual revenue that the Trial Court collected from 2011 through 2020. The revenue depicted here is the combined revenue from the Probate, Juvenile, Domestic, Civil and Criminal divisions. 

Some of the revenue that the Trial Court collects is held and then ‘passed-through’ to victims of crimes in the form of restitution, or to defendants in the form of bond returns. Other revenue is collected and ‘passed-through’ to the State of Michigan in accordance with state law. However, this graph only describes that revenue which is actually kept by Washtenaw County.

Friend of the Court Collection

Chart (1) shows annual support obligations and collections for each year from 2011-2020. Chart (2) shows collections as a percentage of obligations. Together, these charts show the numbers behind our performance on collections as a percentage of obligations, the key federal incentive performance measure regarding FOC collections. Two trends are apparent: 

1. Decrease in total dollars obligated and total dollars collected
2. Increase in collections as a percentage of obligations

Because obligations are declining much faster than collections, the net effect is an increase in dollars collected as a percentage of obligations. The decrease in overall obligations can be attributed to trends in the economy, the trend for high income / obligation cases to opt out of the system (opt out cases are not included in our collection statistics), and to Friend of the Court’s increased efficiency in “right sizing” orders. That is, orders that were charging more than was appropriate given the payer’s income have been adjusted to better reflect (generally lower) incomes. Because obligations are declining much faster than collections, the net effect is an increase in dollars collected as a percentage of obligations.