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Barring Registered Sex Offenders From Juries Passes Constitutional Muster, C.A. Declares
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The First District Court of Appeal has upheld the constitutionality of a statutory bar on registered sex offenders serving on juries.
“[T]he statutory disparity at issue withstands rational basis scrutiny and there is no denial of equal protection,” Justice Douglas P. Miller of Div. Two said in an opinion filed Wednesday.
He noted that Art. VII, §8 of the California Constitution provides:
“Laws shall be made to exclude persons convicted of bribery, perjury, forgery, malfeasance in office, or other high crimes from office or serving on juries.”
Formerly, Code of Civil Procedure §203(a) precluded a person convicted of any felony from being on a jury but that section was amended in 2019 to exclude only some ex-felons, and §203(a)(11) includes registered sex offenders.
Alameda Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Brand sustained a demurrer without leave to amend to the amended complaint filed by one “John Doe” challenging that provision. He adopted—” without further analysis,” Doe asserted, on appeal”—the reasoning set forth by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Barbara M. Scheper in an earlier ill-fated challenge to §203(a)(11).
Finding a “rational basis” for excluding sex offenders, thus defeating an equal-protection challenge, Miller wrote:
“[W]e conclude the Legislature… could determine that a person who has been convicted of a felony sex offense and is currently required to register as a sex offender might harbor a continuing resentment and bias against the system that has imposed the ongoing registration requirement, which subjects the person to ‘continued public surveillance.’…This determination, in turn, provides a constitutionally permissible plausible reason for excluding current sex offender registrants from jury service to promote the legitimate state goal of assuring impartial juries, even if the exclusion is arguably imprecise.”
Miller said that Doe “has not and cannot allege the difference in treatment” between those subject to the prohibition on jury service—“persons in prison or jail, persons on parole, probation or mandated supervision for a felony conviction, and sex offender registrants”— and “persons convicted of felonies who are not subject to continuing monitoring on the other hand lacks a rational basis.”
The case is Doe v. Finke, 2022 S.O.S. 6243.
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