Non-Citizens and the Potential Jury Pool

There's a proposed California assembly bill to change the requirements for juries and allow equal access to non-citizens. There are many distinguished non-citizens that live here a long time before gaining citizenship such as John Muir and Arnold Schwartzenegger that could improve the potential jury pool.

The tradition of denying non-citizens as jurors is absurd since the can be called as witnesses and serve in the military or even being a lawyer.

Tim Donnely, assemblyman from Twin Peaks, thinks this is a flawed measure since being part of a jury should be reserved for only those who have made the sacrifices to become citizens.

Public Counsel for the Undocumented

April 26th

This is a historic moment because it's the first time that a court recognizes a group  of immigrants and recognizes their right to legal representation. - Carmen Iguina ACLU Lawyer

This week for the first week a federal judge has ordered that at least one segment of illegal immigrants deserve legal representation- the mentally handicapped.

Often the mentally handicapped are  are caught up in the legal system and are handed over to detention centers even after judges have declared them mentally incompetent. The judges could not ask public counsel to help them so these people just languished in the system.

The signature case is Jose Antonio Franco-Gomez , who can't count past ten,  and was not freed even after the judge closed proceedings. He languished in custody for five years because he did not have the capacity to understand  the immigration process.

This landmark in immigration law was brought about by the ACLU and Public Counsel.