Stop excluding Jews from California juries.

California’s Jewish community has recently received ample attention regarding California’s death penalty. Most notably, it was recently revealed that Jews were routinely excluded from juries in death penalty cases in Alameda County, California.

When it comes to the death penalty, Jewish opinions vary. So while it is a natural assumption that excluding Jewish jurors in death penalty cases might be another insidious manifestation of anti-Semitism, many take it as a compliment. ing. This ostracism recognizes how Jewish values ​​of fairness conflict with an inherently unfair criminal justice system. It shows an awareness of the inherent tendency to err on the side of caution in Jewish law and teaching. The understanding of the Jewish tendency to question everything and to be deeply introspective about things of great importance is wrong.

For over 2,000 years, Jewish law (halacha) approves the death penalty, while at the same time setting up insurmountable hurdles to ensure that the death penalty is never carried out in accordance with the law. Modern American law falls far short of the safeguards that Torah and rabbinic interpretation of scripture claim. This is one of the main reasons why Jews are almost always involved in the leadership of movements calling for a moratorium on executions and the repeal of death penalty laws.

Notably, this de facto exclusion of Jews is also highly problematic because it assumes that Jews cannot fairly apply secular law when it conflicts with their interpretation of the law. Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen is one of the observant California Jews who recently disproved this assumption in a manner as remarkable as the revelation of California Jewish jury exclusion.

No reasonable person would deny the fact that District Attorney Rosen has a particularly sophisticated understanding of American secular law as it applies to the death penalty. Rosen was also a prosecutor who believed in the death penalty and had sought it in various cases. But after much insight, he is secretly preparing to ask the court to change the sentences of 14 men in the county currently awaiting the death penalty. In most of these cases, he wants the courts to resentence these people to life in prison without parole. But in several separate cases already completed last year, Rosen demanded they be given a chance at freedom.

For Rosen, racism and injustice are two big reasons for this change of heart. Of the former, he came to see the inherent racism conveyed by the American justice system, from slavery to mass incarceration to the death penalty. ”[W]“We have no confidence that these sentences were achieved without racial bias,” his office wrote in a motion filed with the court in multiple cases. “I believe that implicit bias and structural racism played a role in the death penalty.” Prosecutor Rosen also supported the death penalty, citing a lack of fairness in the criminal legal system. He said he had previously believed that in a perfect world, in a completely fair society, some crimes could be so horrific that they would receive less than the legal penalty. The appropriate response would be death, he said, and we don’t have the moral authority to carry out capital punishment because we all know this is not a perfect world where everything is fair. Stated.

Like Rosen, many Jews want to end all executions in the United States and around the world. This includes the Golden State. The 35 death penalty cases currently pending in Alameda County are calling for each defendant to be granted a new fair trial and for the death penalty to be removed from the list of possible punishments in all cases. Just as Rosen’s opinions as a California prosecutor should not be excluded because he is Jewish, neither should the opinions of Jews across California.

Cantor Michael Zoosman, MSM, BCC, is the co-founder of L’chaim!Jews opposed to the death penalty Former Jewish prison chaplain.

Abe Bonowitz is co-founder of Death Penalty Action and co-founder of L’chaim! Jews opposed to the death penalty.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.