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Blind man dismissed from grand jury duty can sue NY for discrimination, judge rules
By
Samantha Max
Published Oct 6, 2026 at 6:00 a.m. ET
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Samantha Max/Gothamist
By
Samantha Max
Published Oct 6, 2026 at 6:00 a.m. ET
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Unlike many New Yorkers summoned for jury service, Albert Elia was excited to be selected to serve on a month-long grand jury in Brooklyn.
But after two days, a judge sent him home.
Elia, 52, said he asked the judge to excuse him after the judge barred him from voting on cases with visual evidence. He’s blind, and he said the judge denied his requests for accommodations that would have let him participate fully in the process.
Now, a federal judge has ruled that Elia can sue the state court system.
“ You can sit there and you can listen to all the deliberations. You just can't participate in them. And somehow they said that wasn't excluding me,” Elia said in an interview. “It beggars belief.”
Elia filed a lawsuit against the New York State Unified Court System, accusing officials of “systemic discrimination” against blind people and failing to offer accommodations that would allow them to fulfill their civic duty. The court system asked a judge to dismiss the case. But U.S. District Judge Ramón Reyes Jr. decided the civil suit can proceed.
The lawsuit reveals the obstacles that can prevent visually impaired New Yorkers from serving on juries in a system that often relies on visual evidence. Elia argued state court officials can do more to accommodate people with limited or no sight — and that failing to do so undermines the justice system.
“ When the courts discriminate, that sends a message that says, ‘Don't bother us with your discrimination elsewhere, because we, ourselves, discriminate,’" Elia said in an interview. “And that is dangerous.”
Al Baker, a spokesperson for the Office of Court Administration, declined to comment on pending litigation. But he said in a statement that “there is no prohibition against blind or visually impaired individuals serving on juries and reasonable accommodations are available.”
‘I was so stunned’
Elia became legally blind as a teenager and has been profoundly blind for about two decades, he said. After losing his sight, he said, he decided to go to law school and become a disability rights attorney.
In October 2024, Elia reported to Kings County Supreme Court for grand jury service, according to his lawsuit. Court staff helped him fill out his juror card, provided him a seat in the jury room with extra space for his guide dog, and offered him a grand juror’s manual in Braille, he said. They also allowed him to use a laptop instead of taking notes by hand.
“ It was clear that somebody had contemplated that they would have blind grand jurors,” he said.
But Elia said things took a turn when prosecutors started to present their cases. While some instructed witnesses to describe videos and photos, he said, others played footage with no sound and didn’t ask witnesses to explain what was happening.
Later that day, a court official brought Elia into a room with a judge and an assistant district attorney, who said she was concerned that Elia couldn't interpret photo or video evidence, according to his lawsuit.
Elia told the judge he could use an app to generate descriptions of photos and other visual material, and he asked prosecutors to have their witnesses describe any visual evidence, the lawsuit states. Elia also suggested that the jury foreperson could describe photos and videos to him.
But the judge told Elia that other jurors couldn’t tell him what they saw and that he needed to perceive the evidence himself.
“All of the jurors can have a different interpretation,” Justice Phyllis Chu told him, according to a partial transcript cited in the court system’s motion to dismiss the case. “You have to make your own determination.”
She said visual evidence could not be translated objectively in the way that an American Sign Language interpreter can “interpret the spoken word verbatim.”
“If a particular case has heavy physical evidence that’s being presented, there are certain things that you cannot evaluate because you can’t see what it is that’s being presented to you,” Chu said, according to the partial transcript.
The judge told Elia that she would like him to participate in the proceedings but that he could not deliberate or vote on cases with a lot of surveillance footage, body-worn camera video, photographs or other visual evidence, court papers show.
“I was so stunned that I was speechless,” he said.
Elia said he told the judge that he might as well be sent home if he wasn’t allowed to vote on all the cases. The judge dismissed him.
Chu is not a defendant in the lawsuit, and a spokesperson representing state judges did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Jury’s still out on blind jurors
The New York State Unified Court System website says “various auxiliary aids are available” for jurors who “have a disability and need a reasonable accommodation.”
“In some situations, the court may be able to provide a reader for visually impaired jurors or have forms, such as a jury questionnaire, reproduced in large print or put on audiotape,” the website says.
The New York Unified Court System denied Elia’s allegation of “widespread, systemic discrimination” against people who are blind. They also argued in their motion to dismiss his lawsuit that whether a juror is qualified to serve is up to the trial court's discretion.
But Elia’s lawsuit accuses the court system of violating the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and Rehabilitation Act, as well as the New York Constitution’s equal protection clause.
He said court officials failed to take various steps to allow him to participate fully as a grand juror. He said that failure stemmed from a misunderstanding of what blind people can and cannot do.
“ I tried to explain to the judge the ways that I could be accommodated,” he said. “The judge simply relied on her own misconceptions about blindness.”
Elia was not the first person with a visual impairment to be selected for a jury. Marilyn Green, a member of the National Federation of the Blind Board of Directors, said an Illinois court was more accommodating when she was summoned for jury service. She was chosen to serve as a juror in a narcotics and gun trial, she said.
Green said she was allowed to take notes on a laptop, and the judge asked witnesses testifying about visual evidence to be more descriptive when needed. The most difficult part was during deliberations, when some materials were printed out on paper that she couldn’t read, she said. But she said she was still able to help the jury reach a verdict, she said.
“ There are definitely ways that a court case could be made accessible to blind people, even when there are visual components,” she said.
Green said some documents can be read aloud and attorneys can better prepare their witnesses to be specific when testifying about visual evidence.
“ It can be done if people want to do it,” she said. “And sometimes it's done if people are forced to do it through legal action.”
But the jury’s still out on blind jurors in New York, so to speak.
Earlier this year, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit similar to Elia’s. Emeline Lakrout argued that the state court system violated her rights when she was dismissed from jury service for a sex abuse case in Manhattan. A judge sent her home after attorneys argued that she wouldn’t be able to see certain evidence, according to court papers.
In response to a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil found the trial court “balanced Plaintiff’s right to serve on the jury with reasonable accommodations with the criminal defendant’s right to a fair trial and the parties' right to exclude jurors for just cause.”
Elia’s case can move forward, following last month’s ruling. He said he hopes his lawsuit will help ensure that New York juries represent the diverse communities they serve—including blind New Yorkers.
“ Blindness is a characteristic and should not relegate you to second-class citizenship and preclude you from doing things like participating in jury service,” he said.
Tagged
americans with disabbilities act
disability rights
new york state
public safety
Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
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