§ 25-1645.Act; intent and purpose.

Section 25-1645 is a purpose clause. It does not set a procedure or a deadline; it states the four goals the rest of the Jury Selection Act is meant to serve. First, jurors must be selected at random from a fair cross section of the population served by the court. Second, every qualified citizen must have the opportunity to be considered for jury service. Third, qualified citizens must fulfill their obligation to serve when summoned. Fourth, no citizen may be excluded from jury service because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, economic status, or military or veteran status.

These goals apply across the whole Act, which reaches both grand juries and petit juries, and petit juries sit in civil trials as well as criminal ones. When a later section leaves the jury commissioner or a court some discretion — how to draw a key number, when to excuse a juror for hardship, how to build a master key list — this stated purpose is the backdrop against which that discretion gets exercised. A reading that produces a jury pool skewed away from a fair cross section of the community, or that shuts out a class of citizens on a prohibited ground, runs against what the Legislature said it was trying to accomplish.