California Assembly Bill 1401

682 Words2 Pages

The Policy

For years, U.S. Immigration policies and immigrants have been a touchstone in every political debate. Politicians along with policymakers work hard to ensure that they attract the best foreigners who can add value to the society while maintaining their rights. Immigration policies affect all aspects of society. Regardless of the status of the immigrants, they have always played a central role in the life and growth of the American nation. The constitution grants all legal individuals living in the U.S to be treated equally. One of the factors that distinguished citizens and noncitizens in California is the jury duty. Only citizens are allowed to practice jury duty.

The Assembly Bill 1401 would have given legal immigrants the right to serve on jury duty, which could have made California to be the first state nationwide to pass such a policy (McGreevy & Mason, 2013). According to Section 1 of AB 1401 (2013), the bill “authorizes individuals who are lawfully present immigrants to be eligible as prospective trail jurors, whereas existing law requires prospective jurors to be citizens of the United States”

The California Senate and Assembly voted 25-11 and 48-28 respectively, in favor of the bill (AB 1401, 2013). According to McGreevy and Mason (2013), Assembly Speaker John Pérez pointed out that noncitizens should enjoy this right of citizenship. He added, “It is about making sure that we uphold the standards of our justice system and make sure everybody is afforded a jury of their peers" (“para 6, 2013). AB 1401 would have dropped the lawfully present immigrants from the list of people that are excluded from jury lists that are collected in part from California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) records. Th...

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... Cal, A. B. 1401, Chapter 677, 2013-14. (Cal. Stat. 2013).

Lin, J. (2013). Non-Citizen Jury Proposed In California Bill . The Huffington Post Inc. Reterived from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/26/non-citizen-jury_n_3163523.html

Mass, W. (2013). Calif. Assembly passes bill to allow non-citizens to serve on juries. Shaper Neo Demo. Reterived from http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/15272-calif-assembly-passes-bill-to-allow-non-citizens-to-serve-on-juries

Megerian, C. (2013). Assembly passes bill to let noncitizens serve on juries . LA Times. Reterived from http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/26/local/la-me-immigrants-jury-20130427

McGreevy, P. & Mason, M. (2013). Gov. Jerry Brown vetoes measure allowing noncitizens on juries.Los Angles Times. Referred By: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/07/local/la-me-1008-brown-bills-20131008

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