Justice is supposed to be blind — but a Brooklyn juror was allegedly kicked out of court because he couldn’t see.
Albert Elia, a blind lawyer who uses a guide dog and assistive technology, was called for grand jury duty in Brooklyn criminal court in October but dismissed after two days when he couldn’t watch video evidence, he said in a lawsuit.
“I was excited to do grand jury service,” Elia, 50, told The Post. “I know most people want to avoid it. [It’s] a serious thing and I was looking forward to it, so it was particularly upsetting to be told, no, you’re not welcome.”
One assistant district attorney at the Brooklyn Supreme Court on Jay Street had witnesses describe video evidence, allowing Elia to serve, he said in court papers. Other prosecutors did not, he noted.
But as the day went on, a judge and a different prosecutor claimed they couldn’t do the same, and barred him from using technology that would have described the footage.
Elia “needed to be able to perceive the evidence with his own senses,” the judge told him, according to the Brooklyn Federal Court lawsuit filed by Elia and the National Federation of the Blind of New York State.
The law allowed Elia to be excluded, the judge claimed, and the court offered no way to accommodate the blind man, he alleged in legal papers.
“I’ve had situations where I’ve been denied access because of a guide dog, but this is the first time I’ve been told, ‘I’m sorry you’re blind, you can’t do this,’” said Elia, who lost his sight fully about 20 years ago due to a progressive genetic eye disease, Goldmann Favre Vitreoretinal degeneration, which attacks the retina.
The court then forced Elia to sit through further cases but didn’t guarantee that he’d be allowed to deliberate with his fellow jurors before sending him home on the second day. Grand jurors typically serve for two to four weeks.
“Mr. Elia was excluded from full participation in grand jury service because of his blindness and denied the accommodations that would allow him to serve,” according to the litigation filed against the state court system and Kings County Clerk Nancy Sunshine.
Court spokesman Al Baker declined comment on the specifics of Elia’s case but insisted there is “no prohibition against blind or visually impaired individuals serving on grand juries and, depending on particular circumstances, reasonable accommodations for such individuals can be made.”
The law required the court to work with Elia to accommodate his needs, said his attorney Victoria Pilger.
“What we want them to do is make sure they have a policy in place,” she said.
Elia is seeking unspecified damages along with changes to make jury duty accessible to the disabled.
