Law Perpetuates Mass Disenfranchisement of Blacks on Manhattan Juries
David R. Jones, The Urban Agenda
The disproportionate representation of white people on Manhattan juries has long been an open secret—one that has contributed to the high rate of black and brown people convicted of crimes, either after trial or, when faced with the prospect of appearing before such a jury and receiving a much longer sentence, a coerced guilty plea.
A state law — Judiciary Law 510 — determines the qualifications to serve as a juror in New York State. They are simple: be a citizen of the United States and the county in which you will serve; 18 or more years old; and able to understand and communicate in English. Then, finally, have no felony convictions, no matter what they were or how long ago they occurred.
Passed, not coincidentally, in the same era as the Rockefeller Drug Laws, Section 510 bars the same swath of New Yorkers from juries as were devastated for decades by racist enforcement of those laws—Black men—and is part of a decades-long fixation on excluding Black people from full participation in American life.
Sadly, the felony exclusion remains on the books, even after the 2009 reforms to the Rockefeller Drug Laws and after the right to vote was restored to people on parole in 2021. And, of course, racially disproportionate law enforcement predates the penal law itself and continues to this day.
That’s why the Community Service Society of New York (CSS) was proud to join a class action lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union seeking to strike down the felony jury exclusion. The right to full civic and economic participation for all New Yorkers is a core value for CSS. Over the last decades, our efforts have registered hundreds of thousands of voters in low-income communities, reversed discriminatory voter purges, and helped people with conviction histories get back their rights to vote and serve on a jury.
Yes, there is one way a person with a felony can regain the right to serve on a jury: get, depending on their number of felony convictions, a certificate of relief from disabilities or a certificate of good conduct. While CSS’s Next Door Project helps people obtain certificates, we only serve a fraction of the eligible people each year, and the process itself involves a detailed application, investigation by a probation or parole officer, and approval by a Criminal Court judge or the division of parole. People who are denied are rarely told why, just to apply again in another year or two. This burdensome process is no cure to the harm caused by the jury exclusion.
And that harm is substantial. Aside from permanently banning people with felony convictions from full participation in civic life, the felony exclusion creates less diverse juries. Racially diverse juries increase the public’s faith that the legal system results in justice, and, in Manhattan, only a racially diverse jury could truly be a jury of one’s peers. More importantly, they have been shown to more thoroughly examine evidence, more accurately grasp facts, and be less likely to believe that a Black defendant is guilty. In other words, keeping the felony jury exclusion in place will result in more Black people convicted of crimes—people who may have been acquitted by a more diverse jury.
For those who think that people with felony convictions lack the judgment or moral character to serve on a jury, consider who that rule nonetheless allows to serve: people convicted of jury tampering, a misdemeanor; professionals who have had their licenses revoked for misconduct and unethical behavior; even disgraced politicians.
But these individuals will likely be weeded out during voir dire. Potential jurors have to fill out questionnaires under penalty of perjury disclosing, among other information, past criminal convictions. Then during voir dire, each side in a case may question potential jurors and, based on those answers—including whether they disclosed a criminal conviction—keep them off of a jury. This individualized analysis—long used in other anti-discrimination laws protecting people with criminal records—can properly determine whether someone’s past felony conviction biases them enough to be unfit to be a juror in a particular case. Voir dire gives the lie to justifying the felony jury exclusion on whatever a past conviction may say about a person’s current ability to be fair and impartial.
In addition to the class action, CSS is also supporting pending legislation in Albany that would restore the right of people with felonies to serve on juries. And the defendant in this class action—Judge Milton Tingling, the New York County Clerk and Commissioner of Jurors—has publicly opposed excluding people with felony convictions from juries. But he’s bound to follow the law until it is amended or declared unconstitutional.
Manhattan jury pools are disproportionately white, resulting in a routine deprivation of Black and brown New Yorkers’ constitutional right to be tried by a jury of their peers and receive equal treatment under the law. Whether declared unconstitutional in court or amended by the Legislature, all New Yorkers should support ending the felony jury exclusion.