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California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

calmatters.org

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Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#11

Post by ta09876 »

ajdlinux wrote: post #7
Bostonian wrote: post #2

The title is misleading -- someone convicted of a felony is still a felon after being released from prison. Juries create labelled data -- defendants are found guilty or not guilty -- but how do we know what characteristics of juries are likely to result in the most accurate verdicts, since we don't have a measure of whether defendants are truly guilty or innocent? Has anyone looked at what jury characteristics predi…

> The title is misleading -- someone convicted of a felony is still a felon after being released from prison. Perhaps it's time for the US to follow the lead of most of its common law brethren in the Commonwealth and get rid of the terms "misdemeanour" and "felony".

What's wrong with having words for "small crime" and "big crime"?

Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#12

Post by gesman »

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #3

I’m normally automatically skeptical of anything passed by our legislature here (which passes laws to ban plastic straws and water in restaurants but couldn’t care less about feces and mental illness all over the streets). For this, I’m totally 100% behind the decision. A jury of our peers is as good as it gets, folks. Even with the drawbacks it will never get better. We need to protect it and honor it, and that incl…

Add to that idiotic idea to ban water bottles in SFO to "protect the environment". Now every thirsty passenger in SFO has to either buy a gigantic 1.5L water bottle or of a questionable health-quality aluminum one.

Sorry for diversion of a subject, can't resist.

Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#13

Post by larnmar »

gesman wrote: post #12
3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #3

I’m normally automatically skeptical of anything passed by our legislature here (which passes laws to ban plastic straws and water in restaurants but couldn’t care less about feces and mental illness all over the streets). For this, I’m totally 100% behind the decision. A jury of our peers is as good as it gets, folks. Even with the drawbacks it will never get better. We need to protect it and honor it, and that incl…

Add to that idiotic idea to ban water bottles in SFO to "protect the environment". Now every thirsty passenger in SFO has to either buy a gigantic 1.5L water bottle or of a questionable health-quality aluminum one. Sorry for diversion of a subject, can't resist.

Luckily someone invented La Croix so you can just drink your water fizzy, lightly flavoured, and in a super-wasteful tiny can.

Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#14

Post by SamReidHughes »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #6
mindslight wrote: post #5

No, it won't. If they just mean the state judiciary will summon felons to spend a day at the courthouse, sure. But prosecutors will surely be using their vetoes on such jurors due to their experience with the system, as they do with anyone that speaks a hint about jury nullification or otherwise seems hard to lead.

Prosecutors and defense council don't get an infinite amount of vetoes

One side will probably prioritize booting interesting people like felons though, so they still won't actually serve on the jury of criminal trials as often.

Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#15

Post by gnicholas »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #6
mindslight wrote: post #5

No, it won't. If they just mean the state judiciary will summon felons to spend a day at the courthouse, sure. But prosecutors will surely be using their vetoes on such jurors due to their experience with the system, as they do with anyone that speaks a hint about jury nullification or otherwise seems hard to lead.

Prosecutors and defense council don't get an infinite amount of vetoes

There is a limit on peremptory challenges, for which no reason needs to be given. But I don't think there is a limit on for-cause dismissals.

Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#16

Post by ajdlinux »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #8
ajdlinux wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The title is misleading -- someone convicted of a felony is still a felon after being released from prison. Perhaps it's time for the US to follow the lead of most of its common law brethren in the Commonwealth and get rid of the terms "misdemeanour" and "felony".

Not like it means much to do that, you are subject to most of the same restrictions anyways in other english speaking countries, just under a different name than "felony".

The US is a bit special in how it restricts the rights of ex-felons though - it's the only major common law jurisdiction I can think of off the top of my head where some states restrict the voting rights of ex-prisoners.

Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#17

Post by lopmotr »

shadowmore wrote: post #10
3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #3

I’m normally automatically skeptical of anything passed by our legislature here (which passes laws to ban plastic straws and water in restaurants but couldn’t care less about feces and mental illness all over the streets). For this, I’m totally 100% behind the decision. A jury of our peers is as good as it gets, folks. Even with the drawbacks it will never get better. We need to protect it and honor it, and that incl…

If it offsets the vast amounts of delusional people who have absolutely no concept of the real world and all its dangers, then I'm all for it. People who've been to prison are much more likely to be grounded in visceral reality and weigh things properly compared to much of our increasingly sheltered society, especially along the coasts.

Isn't a failure to judge something correctly the reason they went to prison in the first place? Are you saying they're so well reformed that their judgement now exceeds that of normal people? In that case, there must be other jobs their superior ability to weigh things can be useful.

Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#18

Post by ajdlinux »

ta09876 wrote: post #11
ajdlinux wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The title is misleading -- someone convicted of a felony is still a felon after being released from prison. Perhaps it's time for the US to follow the lead of most of its common law brethren in the Commonwealth and get rid of the terms "misdemeanour" and "felony".

What's wrong with having words for "small crime" and "big crime"?

I'm more concerned with having a word like "felon" to categorise _people_ into "small criminals" and "big criminals", rather than saying what it is they were actually convicted of.

Other common law jurisdictions get by just fine by categorising small crimes as "summary" and larger ones as "indictable" for the purposes of criminal procedure (not that this categorisation maps all that well in the US where the right to jury trials is more entrenched). There isn't a comparable term to "felon", which is fine, because it's much better to talk about a "convicted murderer" or "convicted drug trafficker" or "convicted drink driver". And laws imposing restrictions on ex-prisoners generally apply to specific crimes, or to crimes carrying particular sentences with the threshold varying depending on the type of restriction.

At that point, there just isn't much need for the word "felony".

Re: California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

#19

Post by gnicholas »

I've served on a jury in CA and have seen jury selection on a couple occasions. Based on what I've seen, I think it will remain highly unlikely that a convicted felon will make their way onto a jury of a criminal trial (civil trials might be more likely).

In the standard questionnaire that prospective jurors are given, they are asked if they or members of their immediate family have been victims of a crime, or if they work in law enforcement. Now that felons will be part of the jury pool, they will undoubtedly also ask if they have been convicted of a crime themselves.

In my experience, judges will themselves excuse jurors who have family in law enforcement (parent, spouse, sibling), which means the lawyers don't have to bother using a challenge on it. I would expect the same will happen with many/most criminal convictions, especially when they are related to the crime that is alleged.

And even when they are unrelated, I expect the prosecutor would dig in and ask questions like "have your feelings about respect for the law changed since you were convicted of embezzlement?" — even if it's an assault trial. These questions will be uncomfortable for the potential jurors, who may feel like they're being humiliated and put on trial all over again. I would not want to be a felon being questioned for jury selection by a prosecutor.

note: my experience is in San Mateo county jury selection as a private citizen. I am also a former lawyer, and almost all of my lawyer friends have never made it past jury selection. I served once, only because I emphasized that I practiced tax law, which is very different from criminal law.

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