The state's highest court ruled Wednesday that New Jersey prosecutors cannot bar overtly religious people from serving on juries.
The 6-0 ruling by the state Supreme Court overturned an appellate court decision and ordered a new trial for Lloyd Fuller, who was convicted in 2000 of armed robbery in Essex County and is serving a 14-year term.
Fuller now may receive a new trial because the prosecutor, who was not identified in court documents, blocked from the jury a man who said he was a missionary and another man the attorney believed was Muslim. The prosecutor said he believed overtly religious people tended to favor defendants.
Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz, writing for the court, said a prosecutor's belief that "demonstrably religious persons are all alike in sharing defense-minded sympathies" is too broad.
Such a belief "suggests the very stereotypes that have been used to justify a blanket exclusion that the law condemns," she wrote.
Frank J. Pugliese, assistant deputy state public defender, whose office represented Fuller, said the ruling was a blow against religious discrimination. "Obviously, the court has established for the first time that prospective jurors cannot be excluded based on their religion," he said.
Fuller, 24, has served more than four years of his sentence, Pugliese said.
The state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which argued in favor of Fuller, said, "Excluding people from jury pools based on their religious belief or expression violates the principles of freedom found in the bill of rights."
John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit group that also entered the case on Fuller's behalf, said the opinion provided guidelines for trial judges and lawyers on how to determine if a person who may be religious has a specific bias that would prevent them from being a fair juror. He said those guidelines may prove influential when other states consider the issue.
"I think it sends a clear message that religious people as a class can't be discriminated against on juries, and that if prosecutors are going to do this, they must have a specific, fact-based reason for doing so," said Whitehead, whose group, based in Charlottesville, Va., provides legal services in civil liberties cases.
State Attorney General Peter C. Harvey, whose office had defended the exclusion, said the ruling would be "very helpful to prosecutors."
"We now have clarity on how peremptory challenges can be used when people are wearing overt religious symbols," Harvey said. "I'm really happy that the court shares our view that we shouldn't be asking prospective jurors detailed questions about their religious beliefs. At the same time, the court has given trial judges and lawyers flexibility to explore bias that may arise from a person's beliefs by permitting the court to conduct an inquiry about a juror's ability to be fair."
The Essex County prosecutor's office did not return a message seeking comment on whether it would try Fuller again or drop the indictment.
The ruling came more than a year after the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case, and nearly two years after a state appellate court ruled, 2-1, that prosecutors can use their peremptory challenges to bar overtly religious potential jurors. During jury selection, prosecutors and defense lawyers have a limited number of such challenges for which they do not need to provide a reason.
During jury selection for Fuller's trial, the prosecutor bounced a white man who said he was a missionary and a black man wearing a long black garment and a skull cap who the prosecutor said was "obviously a Muslim." Neither potential juror was asked about his religious beliefs.
The defense objected, claiming discrimination, and citing a landmark case in which the state Supreme Court barred peremptory challenges to exclude blacks solely because the prosecutor thought blacks had a group bias.
In response, the prosecutor told the trial judge that "people who tend to be demonstrative about their religions tend to favor defendants to a greater extent than do persons who are, shall we say, not as religious."
"They may very well tend to be more accepting of a person's professions of innocence in the face of facts to the contrary," the prosecutor argued. The judge overruled the objection.
Fuller was convicted of using a water pistol in the botched armed robbery of a Chinese restaurant. He appealed, claiming that the juror removals violated his 14th Amendment right to equal protection.