The New Jersey State Bar Association (NJSBA) filed an amicus curiae brief in a challenge to the hybrid jury selection process used in a Bergen County criminal trial last fall in the midst of the pandemic. In State v. Dangcil, the Court will decide whether the jury selection process met with the constitutional mandates affording the defendant full participation in the jury selection process and a jury pool that represents a fair cross section of the community.

"The NJSBA supports the New Jersey Judiciary's formidable and laudable efforts to implement effective, safe and fair procedures for the resumption of jury trials in the face of the ongoing challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic," the NJSBA said in its brief, drafted by Lawrence S. Lustberg and Michael R. Noveck, of Gibbons, P.C. "Critical to that endeavor is a jury selection process that allows parties, and their attorneys, to select an impartial jury from a representative pool of jurors."

Dangcil was the first defendant to face the virtual grand jury process following a series of orders from the Supreme Court outlining the procedures for drawing a jury pool. The Jury Management Office summoned 800 people for the jury pool, all but 265 jurors of whom were deemed unqualified to serve. Out of these jurors, the Jury Management Office then granted deferrals of service due to calendaring conflicts without collecting demographics of those jurors. The empaneled jury was ultimately predominantly white and under 50, which Dangcil questioned was a cross section of the community.