Inequitable and Undemocratic: A Research Brief on Jury Exclusion in Massachusetts and a Multipronged Approach to Dismantle It

10-18.) In Part IV, the brief synthesizes the research and proposes a set of evidence-based reforms modeled on specific practices in other jurisdictions to preempt each layer of exclusion that keeps people with felony records out of the venire, the courtroom, the jury box, and the deliberations room. [...] If the goal is to ensure that people with criminal records make it not only into the jury pool but, further, into the courtroom, the jury box, and the deliberations room, eliminating the statutory legal exclusion of people with recent felony convictions from jury service may not be enough.9 Therefore, this research brief offers a series of recommendations, including removing the felony disqualific. [...] The current exclusion that bars people from jury service within seven years of the date of their conviction on a felony offense means that the overwhelming majority of people convicted of felony offenses, and even the vast majority of people sentenced in Superior Court to a term in state prison, experience some period of exclusion in the community during which they are unable to serve on a jury by. [...] In Iowa, a juror may be challenged for “a previous conviction of the juror of a felony unless it can be established through the juror’s testimony or otherwise that the juror’s rights of citizenship have been restored.” Similarly, Colorado also allows a felony conviction to be used as a basis of challenge in the jury selection process. [...] 234A, § 33 allows the court, the officer of the jury commissioner, and the clerk of court or assistant clerk to “inquire into the criminal history records of grand and trial jurors for the limited purpose of corroborating and determining their qualifications for juror service.”102 However, even if the statutory felony exclusion were removed, the jury commissioner still needs to be able to remove p.