Unlike many New Yorkers summoned for jury service, Albert Elia was excited to be selected to serve on a month-long grand jury in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
But after two days, a judge sent him home.<\/p>\n
Elia, 52, said he asked the judge to excuse him after the judge barred him from voting on cases with visual evidence. He\u2019s blind, and he said the judge denied his requests for accommodations that would have let him participate fully in the process.<\/p>\n
Now, a federal judge has ruled that Elia can sue the state court system.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aYou can sit there and you can listen to all the deliberations. You just can’t participate in them. And somehow they said that wasn’t excluding me,\u201d Elia said in an interview. \u201cIt beggars belief.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elia filed a lawsuit against the New York State Unified Court System, accusing officials of \u201csystemic discrimination\u201d against blind people and failing to offer accommodations that would allow them to fulfill their civic duty. The court system asked a judge to dismiss the case. But U.S. District Judge Ram\u00f3n Reyes Jr. decided the civil suit can proceed.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit reveals the obstacles that can prevent visually impaired New Yorkers from serving on juries in a system that often relies on visual evidence. Elia argued state court officials can do more to accommodate people with limited or no sight \u2014 and that failing to do so undermines the justice system.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aWhen the courts discriminate, that sends a message that says, \u2018Don’t bother us with your discrimination elsewhere, because we, ourselves, discriminate,\u2019” Elia said in an interview. \u201cAnd that is dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n
Al Baker, a spokesperson for the Office of Court Administration, declined to comment on pending litigation. But he said in a statement that \u201cthere is no prohibition against blind or visually impaired individuals serving on juries and reasonable accommodations are available.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018I was so stunned\u2019<\/p>\n
Elia became legally blind as a teenager and has been profoundly blind for about two decades, he said. After losing his sight, he said, he decided to go to law school and become a disability rights attorney.<\/p>\n
In October 2024, Elia reported to Kings County Supreme Court for grand jury service, according to his lawsuit. Court staff helped him fill out his juror card, provided him a seat in the jury room with extra space for his guide dog, and offered him a grand juror\u2019s manual in Braille, he said. They also allowed him to use a laptop instead of taking notes by hand.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aIt was clear that somebody had contemplated that they would have blind grand jurors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But Elia said things took a turn when prosecutors started to present their cases. While some instructed witnesses to describe videos and photos, he said, others played footage with no sound and didn\u2019t ask witnesses to explain what was happening.<\/p>\n
Later that day, a court official brought Elia into a room with a judge and an assistant district attorney, who said she was concerned that Elia couldn’t interpret photo or video evidence, according to his lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Elia told the judge he could use an app to generate descriptions of photos and other visual material, and he asked prosecutors to have their witnesses describe any visual evidence, the lawsuit states. Elia also suggested that the jury foreperson could describe photos and videos to him.<\/p>\n
But the judge told Elia that other jurors couldn\u2019t tell him what they saw and that he needed to perceive the evidence himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of the jurors can have a different interpretation,\u201d Justice Phyllis Chu told him, according to a partial transcript cited in the court system\u2019s motion to dismiss the case. \u201cYou have to make your own determination.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said visual evidence could not be translated objectively in the way that an American Sign Language interpreter can \u201cinterpret the spoken word verbatim.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a particular case has heavy physical evidence that\u2019s being presented, there are certain things that you cannot evaluate because you can\u2019t see what it is that\u2019s being presented to you,\u201d Chu said, according to the partial transcript.<\/p>\n
The judge told Elia that she would like him to participate in the proceedings but that he could not deliberate or vote on cases with a lot of surveillance footage, body-worn camera video, photographs or other visual evidence, court papers show.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so \u200astunned that I was speechless,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Elia said he told the judge that he might as well be sent home if he wasn\u2019t allowed to vote on all the cases. The judge dismissed him.<\/p>\n
Chu is not a defendant in the lawsuit, and a spokesperson representing state judges did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Jury\u2019s still out on blind jurors<\/p>\n