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WHAT WE’RE WATCHING

RESUME ON ZOOM – It’s probably not accurate to say there are “fans,” per se, of remote jury trials—but those who view them as a necessary evil during the pandemic just got what passes for a win, thanks to a New Jersey state appeals court. In an order made public yesterday, the New Jersey Appellate Division found no merit in a challenge to the judiciary’s post-pandemic jury selection process, Charles Toutant reports. The panel lifted a stay in State v. Dangcil, the state’s first new jury trial in six months, and sent the case back to Bergen County Superior Court for the trial to resume. Defense lawyers claimed that the jury pool in the Dangcil case was not diverse and that the remote preliminary screening of jurors violated the defendant’s constitutional rights. But the appeals court ruled that “there has been no showing, technical or otherwise, to rebut the presumption of validity, or any evidence to suggest that the selection was non-random or that any constitutionally cognizable group was excluded from the array.”