California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries

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 predict overturning of verdicts on appeal?

I think this is more about signalling to people who served their time in prison that we want to re-integrate them into society than it is about changing how court cases will be decided. And, even if that wasn't the case, everyone has a constitutional right to a jury of their peers - not a jury of everyone @Bostonion thinks is a good person.

In our existing system, both sides get to rule out a set number of jurors for whatever reason they want (unless can be shown that the lawyers intended to discriminate on a few set characteristics), and then an unlimited amount of jurors if they can show the jurors might have any kind of bias, through a process called jury selection or voir dire. This is a giant industry, encompassing everything from body language experts to data analysis. For example, here's what TransUnion had to say about their new big data product:

> With little time to research potential jurors using manual methods, attorneys and consultants traditionally pick juries based on what they can observe — age, gender, answers to background questions during voir dire and body language — leading to jury pools selected at least partially based on stereotypes and hunches.

> Cutting-edge research tools like TLOxp® by TransUnion make it easy and affordable to quickly find more accurate, actionable information on potential jurors. TLOxp uses proprietary linking algorithms to scour 125 billion records on an estimated 95% of the U.S. population within seconds, uncovering insightful information and establishing patterns and relationships.

https://www.tlo.com/blog/smarter-data-is-a-game-changer-for-...

In other words, you aren't the first person to consider that people on juries might be biased, and in fact in my opinion we go far too far in the other direction.

Furthermore, juries don't (generally) just get to decide whatever they want, they are instructed in what factors they are allowed to evaluate, and what tests they must use, by the judge. An appeal can (generally) only challenge the process, not the decision by the jurors.

Here's what the article had to say about this:

> The new law won’t interfere with this process. The attorneys or judge retain authority to dismiss a potential juror with a felony conviction from a particular case, for cause — but a felony conviction does not, in and of itself, constitute cause.

In other words, either side could come up with a vague reason they didn't like a former felon and get them off the jury even if they had already used up their free strikes.

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

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".

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.