Bill > A4287

Introduced Session

This bill would temporarily reduce the minimum age at which a person may be excused from jury duty at the person's own request, for any reason, for a period of time associated with the Public Health Emergency and State of Emergency declared by the Governor's Executive Order 103 of 2020 concerning the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. The opt-out age currently starts at 75 years; the bill would reduce it to 65 years, and apply this age retroactively to March 9, 2020, the date the emergency was declared in the executive order, but would not apply to any person 65 years of age or older who is already a member of an empaneled jury. The provisions of the paragraph would expire 30 days following the declared end to the emergency, or January 1, 2021, whichever occurs later. Although no excuse is required for exercising the age-based opt-out, the main consideration for temporarily changing the minimum opt-out age to 65 years is the well known vulnerability of persons of that age and older to becoming infected with the virus SARS-CoV-2 or the disease caused by the virus, Coronavirus disease 2019, also referred to as COVID-19. This highly communicable virus has caused a much higher rate of hospitalizations and fatalities among persons 65 years of age and older. Thus, the bill would allow any person in the vulnerable age range the option of avoiding potentially large crowds of prospective jurors in courthouses, and reduce the risk of viral exposure, if that person did not meet one of the other, limited statutory reasons allowing an exemption from reporting for jury duty.

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Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D)*, 

Introduced, Referred to Assembly Aging and Senior Services Committee (on 06/22/2020)