A group of Manhattan defense attorneys is suing the state court system for access to demographic data they say could help prevent discrimination during jury selection in criminal trials.<\/p>\n
New York County Defender Services, a Manhattan public defender group, filed a motion late last year asking the court system to share prospective jurors\u2019 demographic information with defense lawyers and prosecutors during jury selection, so they can ensure discrimination is not muddying the process.<\/p>\n
Criminal defendants have a right to trials before a juries that reflect their communities. New York\u2019s constitution also protects potential jurors<\/a> from disqualification based on race, creed, national origin or sex.<\/p>\n State court officials already collect demographic data<\/a> from potential jurors. When New Yorkers report for state jury duty, they fill out a form with their race, gender and other identity traits. But that data isn\u2019t shared with courtroom lawyers, who have to decide on the spot whether they think potential jurors are being discriminated against because of their race, religion or other protected characteristics.<\/p>\n New York County Defender Services is arguing that the state\u2019s current jury selection process jeopardizes the rights of both defendants and prospective jurors. They\u2019re expected to make their arguments in court next week.<\/p>\n \u201cThe stakes are too high for this kind of imprecision that we\u2019re currently operating under,\u201d Sergio De La Pava, legal director for New York County Defender Services, said in an interview.<\/p>\n The Office of Court Administration and the Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office did not respond to requests for comment. The Bronx district attorney\u2019s office and the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York declined to comment.<\/p>\n The jury selection \u2018guessing game\u2019<\/p>\n The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution and subsequent Supreme Court decisions have guaranteed defendants\u2019 rights to an impartial jury selected from a \u201cfair cross-section of the community.\u201d New York state tries to get that \u201cfair cross-section\u201d into its courtrooms by randomly summoning potential jurors<\/a> through a mix of databases, including tax filings, voter rolls and unemployment records.<\/p>\n If a criminal defendant thinks their slate of potential jurors doesn\u2019t reflect the demographics of their community, they can ask for a new group to be called into the courtroom. But it\u2019s nearly impossible for defense attorneys to make that type of argument without data, De La Pava said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re tasked with this rather critical obligation, and then you\u2019re not given the tools,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The lack of access to demographic data also makes it difficult for attorneys to raise concerns when they believe potential jurors are being illegally blocked from serving based on identity traits like ethnicity or religion, New York County Defender Services argued in its court papers.<\/p>\n At the beginning of a trial, potential jurors face questions from the judge, prosecutors and defense attorneys to assess whether they can fairly evaluate the evidence and reach a verdict. Prosecutors and defense attorneys are each allowed to strike a certain number of jurors without giving a reason. If the opposing side thinks a prospective juror is being struck because of their race or another protected characteristic, they can challenge it.<\/p>\n Without knowing for sure potential jurors\u2019 demographics, De La Pava said, attorneys are forced to assume based on clues like people\u2019s appearances or last names. This attempt to avoid discrimination, he said, can force attorneys to do the opposite: stereotype and profile potential jurors.<\/p>\n \u201cAre we going to inspire confidence that these things are being done at the highest possible level to protect everyone\u2019s constitutional rights? Or are we going to engage in what often devolves into a guessing game?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Some attorneys argue that this type of illegal screening happens regularly in New York courtrooms. In 2023, a group of law professors filed ethics complaints against 10 current and former prosecutors who judges found had illegally removed potential jurors, including a former Queens prosecutor who admitted to using notes that advised against selecting \u201cHispanics\u201d and \u201cgrandmotherly types\u201d<\/a> for a jury. But these types of public findings of wrongdoing during jury selection are rare.<\/p>\n If court officials shared juror demographic information with attorneys, De La Pava said, it could be used in two primary ways. First, lawyers could compare the demographic makeup of the potential jurors called into the courtroom with the overall makeup of the borough to assess whether their client\u2019s jury pool reflects a \u201cfair cross-section of the community.\u201d Second, attorneys could use the data when disputes come up about prospective jurors\u2019 demographic information.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could immediately get to the truth of the matter and figure out: \u2018Why is it that the jury is not representative of the community? Why is it that there\u2019s no one or very few people who look like my client or have had his life experiences?\u2019\u201d said Peter Santina, managing attorney at the legal reform organization Civil Rights Corps. \u201cIt\u2019s actually quite shocking that we\u2019re in 2026, the data\u2019s being collected and it\u2019s not being shared.\u201d<\/p>\n As of 2024, New York was one of 19 states<\/a> that collected juror demographic data, according to a Berkeley Law report. Of those states, New York was one of only three that didn\u2019t share that data with attorneys, the report found.<\/p>\n \u201cIt seems that New York is an outlier in that respect and that this is a fairly straightforward way of providing that important information to the attorneys involved,\u201d Santina said.<\/p>\n Russell Neufeld, a former attorney in charge at the Legal Aid Society, said providing attorneys with demographic data could help to ensure that juries are representative of the local community and minimize the risk that bias will taint a jury\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n \u201cOne person with bias can poison a whole jury,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Studies have found the demographic makeup<\/a> of a jury can affect its decisions<\/a>. If a defendant is a minority and no one from their group is in the jury, Neufeld said, one biased person could make comments that convince the entire jury to find them guilty.<\/p>\n \u201cBut if there\u2019s just one Latino, one Black person, one Jewish person, one Muslim person on the jury,\u201d he said \u201cthe racist, biased, bigoted person is much less likely to express themselves and poison the rest of the jury with their bias.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of Manhattan defense attorneys is suing the state court system for access to demographic data they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-121811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-queens","12":"tag-queens-headlines","13":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}