News Photo by Temi Fadayomi Alpena County Clerk Keri Bertrand is pictured in her office in the Alpena Circuit Court building on Thursday.

ALPENA — Alpena officials are reminding citizens of the importance of showing up for jury duty when they called to do so, after a low turnout at the end of the last cycle.

“Most people know that it’s [jury duty] very important,” Alpena County Clerk Keri Bertrand said. “It’s not something that you should take lightly.”

According to Bertrand, for jury duty a random list of people of licensed drivers and people with state IDs are selected by the Secretary of State and sent to a jury board. From there, potential jurors receive questionnaires that they have to complete and turn back in. The jury board then goes through the questionnaires and selects those who it believes to be qualified and they are entered into the jury pool.

Jurors who are selected remain in service for three more months where they may be called in to serve. Bertrand said that there is a notable drop off in participation towards the end of each term with the end of the latest cycle being especially low.

“You’re on [the jury] for three months, and at the end of those three months, a lot of times people I don’t know why, but we have very low participation at the end of those three months,” Bertrand said. ” We’ll call in, you know, 80 people and 50 people will show up. So a lot of people just don’t show up for their services. It’s usually towards the end of their term. And we had that in September, where we had very low participation.”

Jury duty is federally mandated and not showing up before a judge can result in being called before the judge and potentially facing fines.

“If you don’t show up, then we can send out a show cause (order). So you’ll have an opportunity to come in, talk to the judge and tell him why you didn’t show up,” Bertrand said. “You could either get a fine for contempt of court, or if you don’t show up for the show cause then a bench warrant could be issued.”

Bertland emphasizes above all else that the jury is an invaluable component of the legal system and that it is important that people recognize its significance when it comes to participating.

“Obviously, if we don’t have jurors, we don’t have jury trials. And then that causes a lot of problems for the defendants and everybody involved with the court system,” Bertrand said. “If you’re called for jury service, then you have a very important duty to perform. It means a lot to a whole lot of different people.”