Pandemic, Protest, and Agency: Jury Service and Equal Protection in a Future Defined by COVID-19

Abstract

This essay calls for an expansive view of Fourteenth Amendment equal protection against the discriminatory empanelment of juries grounded upon a culture of systemic racism. For an individual juror fundamental elements of survival during a pandemic are access to health care, safe transportation, and connective technology. Yet, structural and systemic racism precludes many potential jurors of color from securing these necessary supports, thus denying them the ability to be recognized on juror source list or accommodated for jury service. Jury service is a direct and impactful act of citizen agency over the justice system, and the systemic exclusion of individuals from jury service based on race and economic status is a denial of that agency and a constitutional violation. Supreme Court rulings like Duren v. Missouri are inadequate to provide relief in the face of such violations and only provide outdated and ineffectual remedies to this mass denial of equity.