Let young voters serve on juries

By Timothy J. Wilson

ST. LOUIS -- More than 200,000 Missouri voters are systematically excluded from jury participation. Like women and African Americans before them, 18-, 19- and 20-year-old voters exist as second-class citizens in Missouri and are barred from being seated as jurors.

An 18-year-old is considered an adult under Missouri criminal law and is held accountable as an adult, but the jury that will hear his case and may recommend his sentence will not have anyone of his age on the panel from which the jury is selected.

For decades, 47 states and all 94 federal district courts from Maine to Florida to California to Guam to the Virgin Islands have included 18-to-20-year-olds on their juries. Only Missouri and Mississippi keep the jury age at 21. Alabama has modified its jury minimum age to 19 from 21.

For decades, 18-to-20-year-old Missourians have voted for president, U.S. senator, U.S. representative, governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, state auditor, state treasurer, state senator, state representative, mayor, judge and councilman.

Our sister states, for decades, have blended these young voters into their jury service without negative consequences. It is healthy to have the perspective of young voters, old voters, white voters, black voters, men voters and women voters on juries to have a true cross-section of the community in the jury box.

Young voters, like every group, present a typical distribution of abilities and attitudes. Some are above-average, most are average and some are below-average. Some are conservative, most are moderate and some are liberal. Some are stern, most are moderate and some are lenient. This is true of every group called to jury service.

Jury service is actually two to three days. And courts routinely make accommodations to minimize the inconvenience of all citizens, such as teachers called in the summer, outside workers called in January, students called on breaks and deferments for health and family issues.

Do we send children to the walls of our nation to defend it? No. Young voters 18 and over enlist in our armed services to fight global terrorism. Some will die. America's young men and women in the armed services are not children. They are not mercenaries or robots. They should be treated as first-class, not second-class, citizens. A wounded veteran should not be denied his rightful seat in the jury box. The grotesque message in Missouri is that young voters are good enough to die for their country, but not good enough to be jurors.

Section 494.425 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri merely needs to be modified to adjust the minimum juror age to 18 from 21 like 47 states and the federal courts have done for a quarter of a century.

In 1971, the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. By it, the voting age in all of America was modified to 18 from 21. Thereafter, 94 percent of the states adjusted their juror age to conform with the voting age.

In our democracy, citizens are civically empowered in two ways: 1. Voting. 2. Jury service.

No monarch swaggers. Voters elect. No lawyer dictates. Jurors decide.

Jettison this relic of bias.

Like women and African Americans before them, young voters are greeted with condescending attitudes that they are not smart enough and not capable enough. Like bias against women and African Americans, these prejudices die hard. Young voters work full-time jobs, attend college, work and attend college, donate time to volunteer charitable organizations, help the elderly, defend America, love America and deserve acceptance as first-class citizens in Missouri like in 47 of our sister states. Missouri should not obstinately emulate the Mississippi model of prejudice against and exclusion of young voters.

If women and African Americans were comprehensively excluded from all criminal cases and all civil cases where their fates were decided, no reviewing court would ever let such verdicts stand.

If an aggrieved 19-year-old woman sues her 45-year-old male boss for sexual harassment, the jury hearing the case is completely open to 45-year-old men and completely closed to 19-year-old women. This is unfair and feeds the cynical notion that some are more equal than others.

Missouri courts no longer hand the proscriptions "No colored" or No women" need apply for jury service. It's past time that Missouri likewise remove the "No young voters" sign from over the jury box.

Timothy J. Wilson a circuit judge in the 22nd Judicial Circuit of Missouri.