jurors

The Passage of AB1401

This past week the California State Assembly passed a bill, AB 1401, that would make California the first state in the US to allow non-citizen lawful residents to serve on jury duty.

The state of California is in need of widening the pool of prospective jurors, and at the same time it will assist in integrating immigrants into the community-at-large.

From a defense perspective, it is a positive change to have our jury pools more fairly represent a cross-section of our communities (and allow for a greater representation of views from ethnic and racial minorities) as is required by past case precedent.