New Jersey Governor’s Order Allows People with Prior Felony Convictions to Serve on Jury Duty
On January 11, 2026, just days before New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) left office, he signed an executive order that restores jury duty service rights to state residents with felony convictions. As Bolts magazine reported, the policy will affect around 350,000 New Jerseyites—close to 4% of the state’s population—who were previously blocked from jury duty due to past criminal convictions.
Murphy signed the order from the lectern of a church in East Orange and gave his pen to Dameon Stackhouse, an advocate who spent more than a decade in prison and now works as a fellow at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. “If I am sent a letter saying I should come in for a jury, I am excited to go through the process,” he told Bolts. “I’ve been telling family and friends that when they get a letter and they try to get out of jury duty—no, you should be excited to be involved. I am.”
Every single state has a jury exclusion rule on the books, and that still includes New Jersey. Because the policy shift has not been passed by the state legislature, Murphy only has the power to restore jury duty service rights retroactively, meaning that anyone convicted after January 10, 2026 will still be banned. Despite these limitations, the order will still have a positive impact in expanding New Jersey’s jury pool to be more reflective of its demographics.
Like every other state, New Jersey’s legal system disproportionately targets Black residents, resulting in about 25% of Black adults with criminal convictions who were, therefore, previously banned from jury duty. Research, as Bolts highlights, has shown that more diverse juries take more time to deliberate and have a significant impact on reducing sentencing.
Sources: Bolts, New Jersey Monitor
As a digital subscriber to Prison Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.
Already a subscriber? Login