Hays County hand-delivering jury summonses for upcoming trial

HAYS COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) -- On Thursday, Hays County said it is hand-delivering jury summonses to prospective jurors for an upcoming trial happening Jan. 8, the district said in a news release.

Hays County District Clerk Avrey Anderson Sr. said in the release more than 6,000 jury notices were affected "throughout multiple county offices" due to an error by a Hays County vendor.

Those jury summonses have since been printed and given to county constables. They will then hand-deliver the documents to those prospective jurors, according to Hays County.

"It's an unfortunate situation due to the important nature of the cases that are currently on the dockets," Anderson Sr. said.

For anyone who has received a notice on their door or mailbox, the county said that is an official summons from the Hays County District Clerk.

Anderson Sr. said if the issue is not resolved by the end of this week, the county will "continue to seek alternative methods" to serve jury summons.

Anderson tells KXAN the notices were never sent out for some reason, he says something went wrong with the vendor.

"We use a new software system called JMS with Tyler Technologies," Anderson said.

KXAN reached out to Tyler Technologies for comment, but at the time the story aired we did not receive a response.

On Thursday evening around 8 P.M. the District Clerk sent out a message stating the vendor issue had been fixed.

"Jury summonses for the remainder of January and early February have been sent to prospective jurors. "[The vendor] has corrected its mistake from what we know at this point," said Anderson. "We will continue to follow up to ensure that we are in a certain and organized position so that this does not occur again."