New York County clerk’s quest to diversify the jury pool
When Milton Tingling took over for the iconic Norman Goodman as New York County clerk just over a year ago, he brought a unique set of experiences to the position. He was the first judge to be named a county clerk. He was also the first black person to hold that position in the entire state.
Immediately, he outlined a very different goal for the office: using the position to remedy a lack of diversity in the jury pool, an inequity he had seen from his years on the bench.
“I have been in and around the courts for about 50 years of my life,” Tingling said. “Having been an attorney and selecting juries and looking at the jury pool and the ability to select jurors that would be reflective of the type of jury pool I would want, it simply hasn’t happened. In the many years I was a judge, I have never seen a majority-minority jury in the county of New York. Most times it is completely to the contrary.”
The jury pool is picked from five source lists in New York, including voter registration, the Department of Motor Vehicles, human resources records like unemployment or welfare, and tax rolls.
“In New York County … having lived here all my life, we have a population of 18- to 25-year-old minority males that will never sit on a jury,” he said. “It is a combination of them not registering to vote, New York County has to be the most non-car friendly borough in the city … so you don’t necessarily have a driver’s license. Is an 18-25 minority male paying taxes? No. If you are collecting social service benefits, you are most likely collecting under your parent’s name. So you have a whole pool that to me is being disproportionately affected that is not able to participate in the jury system.”
Tingling is working with a variety of groups, including The Fortune Society, the New York County Lawyers’ Association, New York Law School, to start a voter registration push that targets ex-offenders. Many convicts who have served their time don’t know that they have to re-register to vote.
The push will also focus on assisting ex-offenders with filling out certificates of relief from civil disabilities, or CORs.
“COR’s remove, with exceptions, things that have been forfeited based on your felony conviction,” Tingling said. “You can apply for city jobs, state jobs. Now, you can’t become a policeman.”
Tingling hopes to launch the new campaign by the end of the month.