Topeka ? Shawnee County has begun cracking down on people who don’t show up for jury duty.

As many as eight people who failed to report for duty on Oct. 3 will be mailed letters this week ordering them to appear in court.

But this time they won’t have to serve as jurors. They will be asked to explain why they shouldn’t be found in contempt of court for failing to report for jury service, Shawnee County District Court administrator Don Troth said.

In the first nine months of 2005, more people failed to report to serve as jurors, 3,984, than reported, 3,407, a no-show rate of 53.9 percent, according to Shawnee County District Court numbers.

Chief Judge Richard Anderson called that yield of prospective jurors “pathetic.”

On Oct. 3 Anderson was down to his last prospective juror as lawyers picked a jury to decide if a defendant was guilty or innocent of aggravated indecent liberties with a juvenile. That last prospective juror was accepted, so the jury was seated.

But if Anderson had needed more people for the jury pool, he would have been forced to send a sheriff’s deputy out to round up the first qualified citizens found either in the courthouse hallway or on Topeka streets, then bring them back to his courtroom for jury duty.

The Shawnee County jury coordinator had mailed summonses to 168 county residents, and 101 showed up. That was a no-show rate of 39.9 percent.

Because the rate was so high, Anderson instructed jury coordinator Colleen Speaker to mail follow-up letters instructing the no-shows to answer their jury summonses.

In Kansas, the sanction for not reporting for jury duty is up to $100 per day for each unexcused absence. Jurors are selected randomly by computer from voter registration rolls and driver’s license lists.