California is about to allow former felons to serve on juries
I&#x27;ve served on a jury in CA and have seen jury selection on a couple occasions. Based on what I&#x27;ve seen, I think it will remain highly unlikely that a convicted felon will make their way onto a jury of a criminal trial (civil trials might be more likely).<p>In the standard questionnaire that prospective jurors are given, they are asked if they or members of their immediate family have been victims of a crime, or if they work in law enforcement. Now that felons will be part of the jury pool, they will undoubtedly also ask if they have been convicted of a crime themselves.<p>In my experience, judges will themselves excuse jurors who have family in law enforcement (parent, spouse, sibling), which means the lawyers don&#x27;t have to bother using a challenge on it. I would expect the same will happen with many&#x2F;most criminal convictions, especially when they are related to the crime that is alleged.<p>And even when they are unrelated, I expect the prosecutor would dig in and ask questions like &quot;have your feelings about respect for the law changed since you were convicted of embezzlement?&quot; — even if it&#x27;s an assault trial. These questions will be uncomfortable for the potential jurors, who may feel like they&#x27;re being humiliated and put on trial all over again. I would not want to be a felon being questioned for jury selection by a prosecutor.<p>note: my experience is in San Mateo county jury selection as a private citizen. I am also a former lawyer, and almost all of my lawyer friends have never made it past jury selection. I served once, only because I emphasized that I practiced tax law, which is very different from criminal law.