Last week a federal judge reversed an order he had issued that would have banned people who are not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 from serving as jurors in an upcoming case in his courtroom.
His order would have excluded some 40% or more of prospective jurors in the community and likely violated the requirement that the jury pool reflect a fair cross section of the community. In his jurisdiction, those vaccinated for COVID-19 skew along gender, racial, income, education, age, geographic, and political lines.
This was clearly unacceptable.
While that was a fairly unique situation, the exclusion of people with felony convictions on their records has been going on for quite some time. In the United States, 8% of all adults have a felony conviction on their record, and the group of people who have been convicted of a felony skews along gender, racial, geographic, and other demographic lines.
Why do lawmakers and court officials accept this type of exclusion, despite its impact on the representativeness of our juries?
In his book Twenty Million Angry Men: The Case for Including Convicted Felons in Our Jury System, Professor James Binnall has compiled a detailed explanation of how such exclusion is traditionally justified and then systematically addresses how these justifications are flawed.
You are warmly invited to join us TOMORROW, 6 July (not 6 June as yesterday's email incorrectly stated) as we learn from Professor Binnall why he believes people with felony convictions not only are no threat to juries, but in fact are valuable and needed participants in our jury system.
Register below to join us on the Zoom webinar, or go to the FIJA Facebook page (no registration needed) at the appointed time to view the livestream of the Zoom webinar.
