The debates over who could be a juror provide insights into the political and economic history of our State. They also reflect concern about the improvement of the quality of jurors and their capability to decide the issues before them. Although it appears elitist, this concern for quality was, at least in part, an effort to include as jurors those people in the community with higher education, professional status, financial wherewithal or worldly experience who tried to avoid jury duty. It also reflects the ambiguous views of citizens about whether jury service was a privilege and a treasured right of citizenship, or whether, like paying taxes, it was a periodic duty to be avoided.

In 1741, the Colonial Assembly wrote that the juror qualification statute was for "the returning more able [and] Sufficient Jurors ... and for Reformation of Abuses ... [of those who] for reward may be Tempted to Spare the most able, [and] Sufficient, and Return the Poorer and Simpler Freeholders [and] others Less able to descern the Causes in Question ...." In 1915 the Constitutional Convention and then in 1936 the Judicial Council expressed the same concern. The democratization of the jury can be traced by examining changes in qualifications made through the years based on property, gender, age, physical abilities and employment.

Property: On May 16, 1699, the Colonial Assembly expressed concern about jurors who were insufficiently qualified "to discern causes between the parties." The Assembly then required that a person eligible for jury duty be a free and lawful male over 21 who had in his own name and right a good house or messuage with ten acres of land of freehold. On the other hand, if the person lived in New York City or Albany, he needed to have one dwelling house free from encumbrances or a personal estate of œ50 free and clear. Property ownership remained a qualification for jury service for almost 250 years, until abolished in stages in the later 1960 s.

The irrelevance of property ownership to juror competency was recognized in 1912, when the Court of Appeals spoke of it as a legal and technical qualification of jury service, the absence of which would not require reversal of a conviction. The Court recognized that lack of property ownership did not reflect the character of the juror, or show that the juror functioned with prejudices precluding impartiality.^[5] The curious nature of the relationship of property ownership to competence to serve as a juror is apparent from the fact that from county to county

Perhaps the original justification for requiring an interest in property was to assure that the juror had a stake in the community. But 30 years before the abolition of the property requirement, it was noted that "viewing the jury as a significant political institution, property qualifications eliminat[e] the point of view of a great proportion of the population... [and are] inconsistent with the view of the jury as a force for the democratization of the law."^[6] Today, we recognize that a stake in the community rests on more than ownership of real or personal property, and current law includes no such requirement, desiring rather "to increase citizen participation."^[7]

Gender: When the Charter of 1683 said the jury was to consist of men, that is precisely what it meant; so did the Constitutions of 1777, 1821, 1846 and 1894. The 1895 statute that recognized the right to be a juror did not grant that right to women. And when in 1899, the Court of Appeals wrote that the Constitution secured the right to a common law jury of twelve men,^[8] "men" was not a gender neutral term. In 1909, the right to be a juror was included in the State Civil Rights Law, but the Judiciary Law continued to disqualify women as jurors.

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