Office of Jury Commissioner Regulations  Office of Jury Commissioner Regulation 2: Specifications of Numbered Resident File

The specifications of the Numbered Resident File ("The File"), established by Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 234A, Section 11 , as amended by the Acts of 1982, Chapter 298, are set forth in this regulation.

The first record for each city or town shall be a header record containing header sequence number, current year, city or town name, and county name. The header record layout shall be as follows:

The header sequence number shall be six zeros. This shall be the only record with a sequence number equal to zeros. The current year shall be four numeric characters. The city or town name shall be left-justified within the field and shall contain the name only (Example: " NEWTON" not "CITY OF NEWTON"). The county name shall be left-justified and shall contain the name only (Example: "MIDDLESEX" not " MIDDLESEX COUNTY").

The second and each subsequent record for each city or town shall be a detail record. One detail record shall be provided for each resident on the Numbered Resident File. The first sequence number shall be numbered one. Each detail record thereafter shall be incremented by one. The last detail record on the file will have a sequence number equal to the total number of residents on the file. There shall be no duplicate sequence numbers. Each detail record will contain the following information which shall be in uppercase lettering: sequence number, last name (designations such as "JR" or "III" shall appear in this field), first name, middle initial, mailing address, five-digit Zip Code for the mailing address, Zip+4 Code for the mailing address, date of birth, sex, and occupation. The detail record for each city or town shall be in ascending order according to the sequence number of each record. The detail record layout shall be as follows:

The sequence number shall be numeric, right-justified within the field, and contain leading zeros. The last name shall contain the full last name, hyphenated if appropriate, and be left-justified with[in] the field. The first name shall be left-justified within the field. The mailing address, which shall contain no leading zeros in any number, shall be left-justified and contain the house number, street name, and apartment number if appropriate or the Post Office Box number, exactly as it should appear for mailing purposes (Example: 200 BEACON ST #12A or PO BOX 23). The Zip Code shall contain five numeric characters and the Zip+4 Code which shall contain four numeric characters. The date of birth shall contain six numeric characters in the format MMDDYY. The left-most characters shall indicate the month (a leading zero is required if appropriate). The middle two characters shall indicate the day of the month (a leading zero is required if appropriate). The right-most two characters shall indicate the year of birth (a leading zero is required if appropriate). If only the year of birth is known, the year of birth shall be inserted preceded by blanks in the month and day portions of this field. If the date of birth is unavailable, this field shall contain all blanks. The sex field shall contain one alphabetic character: "F" for female, "M" for male. If the sex is not known, this field shall contain one blank character. Occupation field shall be left-justified within the field.

The data processing records shall be if stored on one-half inch magnetic computer tape having [sic] shall conform to the following specifications:

• 9-track
• 600 or 6250 bits-per-inch-density (B.P.I.)
• EBCDIC or ASCII character set
• odd parity
• no label information
• 110 characters per record
• 8 records per block

Each reel shall be marked with the name of the city or town and the current year and shall be sent submitted [sic] to the Office of Jury Commissioner no later than June first of each year and shall be accompanied by a letter or memorandum stating the number of records on the tape, number of tracks, density character set, parity, and other information needed to process the data contained on the tape. This memorandum shall also contain the name, address, and telephone number of an individual who may be contacted by the Office of Jury Commissioner in the event questions or difficulties arise regarding the content or format of the computer tape. Where applicable, the data for several cities or towns may be concatenated to create a single file on tape.

The data processing records if stored on diskette shall conform to the following specifications:

a.) The diskette must be readable on an MS-DOS(r), version 2.0 or higher 100% compatible IBM AT(r) personal computer (PC).

b.) The diskette shall be formatted in MS-DOS(r) and shall be double-sided.

c.) If The File requires storage on more than one (1) diskette, it shall be submitted in the MS-DOS(r) BACKUP/RESTORE format.

d.) The File may be submitted as files that are readable under the following software: DBaseII(r) or higher, PCFile+(r) version 2 or higher, or Word Perfect(r) version 4.2 or higher.

e.) The File may be submitted in one of the following formats in ASCII: comma delimited, text editor or SDF format (one record per line with no separators between fields), fixed length (every record is exactly the same length with no delimiters between records), and line delimited (one field per line).

The data may be stored on 5½" or 3¼" diskettes. Each diskette shall be marked with the name of the city or town, the current year, and the run date of the disk. The diskette shall be sent to the Office of Jury Commissioner accompanied by a letter or memorandum stating the number of records on the diskette(s), the format it is in, the model of computer used, the name and version of the software used to create The File, the name and version of the disk operating system used, and any other information needed to process the data contained on the diskette. This letter memorandum shall also contain the name, address, and telephone number of an individual who may be contacted by The Office [sic] in the event questions or difficulties arise regarding the content and/or format of the diskette.

Any city or town having good cause or desiring to submit its Numbered Resident File in a form or format not in compliance with this regulation may make a written request to the Jury Commissioner for authority to do so on or before the first day of June of each year. The proposed alternative file shall contain all of the information contained under this regulation. The letter of request shall describe with particularity the alternative form and/or format proposed by the city or town and the reasons therefor. The Jury Commissioner will grant or deny such request in writing within ten days of its receipt.