2023/07/29 by Andrei Poamă, Briana L. McGinnis · 1 voice
Neuroscience · Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Free Will and Agency #Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics #Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/ajps.12816
openalex publication_date 2023/07/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15
Abstract Currently, almost all polities that allow for jury trials deprive people with felony convictions of their right to serve as jurors on criminal trials. Against these exclusionary practices, we contend that there are epistemic and political reasons to enable (and not merely allow) convicted felony defendants to serve as jurors. These reasons are derived from the ideal of peer judgment, which we take to be deeply ingrained in and relevant for ensuring fair jury‐judgment practices. In this article, we construct an account of peer judgment understood as equal subjection to coercive law, spell out the epistemic dimension of this account, and use it to argue that there are stronger reasons for having people with felony convictions serve as jurors, as compared to average, noncriminalized citizens. Our peer‐judgment argument is meant to both weaken and outweigh current justifications for excluding people with felony convictions from jury service.