Maryland’s Democratic controlled legislature is poised to reform one of the country’s most restrictive laws barring ex-offenders from serving on juries, building on a commitment to restore rights to the formerly incarcerated that began seven years ago.
As the nation reckons with systemic racism and racial disparities, advocates and lawmakers say they are hopeful that this is the year that Maryland will take the next step to make formerly incarcerated people whole. “For me this bill is really anchored in re-enfranchisement,” Fisher said.
With a disproportionate number of Black men in Maryland’s prisons, advocates are hoping the bill will help widen the jury pool and lead to fairer trials.
“We have to consider jury disenfranchisement based on prior convictions not only an issue of restoring our felons into society but a racial justice issue,” said Elizabeth Hilliard with the Maryland Public Defenders Office.
More than 20 million people across the country — a disproportionate number of whom are Black men — are disqualified for jury duty because of a prior conviction, according to a 2021 report by the Prison Policy Initiative, a research and criminal justice advocacy group.
Criminal justice experts say Maryland’s current law is one of the most restrictive in the country because it not only excludes people who have been convicted of felonies but also those who have been convicted of some misdemeanors as well.
Under the law, a person is barred from jury service if they have been convicted of a crime that carries a sentence of more than a year and the person has served a year in jail. A person who has a pending charge for a crime that carries a sentence of more than a year is also prohibited from serving. An ex-offender can only regain the ability to serve on a jury if they receive a pardon.
According to a recent report by Maryland legislative analysts, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, similar to Maryland, determine eligibility for juror service based on the length of a sentence someone receives and whether the offense is a felony or misdemeanor. There are only three states, Illinois, Iowa and Maine, that do not automatically disqualify jurors based on a prior felony conviction.
“If a guy came out and he’s off parole, he’s off probation, he’s working paying taxes, he should have the same rights as everybody else,” said Stanley Mitchell, 73.
Mitchell was one of nearly 200 older people released from prison after a 2012 landmark decision by Maryland’s highest court determined that juries before the 1980s were regularly given bad instructions, resulting in unfair trials.
“We’re not talking about a child molester working with kids, we’re talking about jury duty,” Mitchell said. “What threat does that pose to anyone?”
Mitchell walked out of Jessup prison nine years ago with $18 and a 30-day supply of high blood pressure pills in his pocket. He’s rebuilt his life and, as a result of the 2015 voting bill, he cast his first ballot in 2018.
Keith Wallington at the Justice Policy Institute said many formerly incarcerated people feel like “they have one foot in society” when their voting and jury service rights are not returned.
In Maryland, more than 70 percent of the prison population in 2018 was Black, compared with 31 percent of the state population.
Sen. Jill P. Carter (D-Baltimore City), who sponsored the Senate version of the bill, said the measure serves two purposes: to ensure that Black defendants “have a jury of their peers” and to re-enfranchise people who have paid their debt to society.
The legislation is the latest effort in Maryland in recent years to level the criminal justice playing field and help ex-offenders become full members of society. In 2018, state lawmakers overturned Gov. Larry Hogan’s veto of a bill that prohibits public and private colleges and universities from including questions about criminal history on student applications. Two years ago, the Democratic-controlled legislature approved an override of another ban-the-box legislation, one that bars employers from asking prospective employees about their criminal history on a job application.
Naila S. Awan, the director of advocacy for the Prison Policy Initiative, said efforts to restore jury service have been discussed more frequently in state legislatures, particularly in those that have, like Maryland, restored voting rights to felons.
“It’s just part of what people view as the basic tenets of what citizenship means in this country and what it means to be a member of society,” Awan said. “I’ve heard folks who are formerly incarcerated at times say ‘don’t say that I’m a returning citizen because you’re not giving me the rights of citizenship.’”
The only person to testify against the bill was Caroline County State’s Attorney Joseph Riley, who spoke on behalf of the Maryland State’s Attorneys Association.
“Issues of re-enfranchisement and civic engagement are incredibly important and they are something that we support; however, they are not what this bill is about,” he told lawmakers, arguing that the measure was largely an effort by defense attorneys to gain an advantage in criminal jury trials. He noted that, unlike other previous bill hearings on ban-the-box legislation and voting rights, there were no felons testifying for the bill.
During Senate floor debate, Republicans argued that there should be some exceptions on who can serve. Last year the bill was amended to ensure that anyone who has a pending charge is still ineligible. Fisher and Carter kept that provision in the new proposal.
Minority Whip Justin D. Ready (R-Carroll) said anyone who has been convicted of deceiving a court should be excluded from serving. He offered an amendment that would continue to bar anyone who has been convicted of fraud, including elder abuse, perjury, witness intimidation and jury tampering from jury service. “We should keep those kind of people off of juries,” he said.
Carter argued that it was a “slippery slope” to exclude people who committed certain crimes and that it was not the legislature’s role to decide who would be fair on a jury. While the bill would allow all felons to be eligible, she said, the legislation would not necessarily mean they would be accepted by attorneys during the jury selection process.
The Senate ultimately removed an exclusion of those convicted of perjury and fraud and approved an amendment that would eliminate anyone who is convicted of witness intimidation and jury tampering from serving on a panel.
The House and Senate bills were identical before the amendment added on the Senate floor. If the House committee does not adjust Fisher’s bill, the two chambers would have to reconcile the differences between the two bills before session ends.
Mitchell said he wants to see the bill become law not just because it will benefit him personally but “it would benefit the jury system because then you would have people that really had life experiences of the people just sitting there on trial. Most of the other people just know about court from what they see on TV.”
