In addition, Anderson had also reasoned that many of the jury-duty summons sent to those 80 and older are returned to the county because the potential jurors are dead or in nursing homes, Booth said.

The county Auditor's Office released an updated jury pool list — which is compiled from Department of Motor Vehicles and voter registration databases — to the county clerk's office this summer, Marshall said in a recent letter to the county's judges.

Anderson, who handles juries for both the county's District and Superior courts, began removing the names in July, Marshall said. That means trials using the altered jury list would have taken place in August or later, he said.

The removal of elderly people's names stopped after another employee in the clerk's office saw what was going on and spoke up, Marshall said.

Marshall said Friday that authorities are still trying to measure how many trials would be delayed and how many verdicts appealed.

It wasn't clear how many jury trials took place in August. Marshall said there were no jury convictions in September. There was one civil jury trial that month, he said, and one felony criminal trial was decided by a judge.