Noah Feldman, Columnist

Trial in George Floyd's Death Shows Jury System's Flaws

Trying to find jurors who’ve never heard of George Floyd is maybe not the best way to ensure justice is served.

March 17, 2021 at 3:00 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

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Jury selection in the criminal trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd is highlighting one of the legal system’s absurdities: its aspiration to choose jurors who are not only neutral but actively uninformed about major public events.

The logic is understandable. We don’t want jurors to have made up their minds before hearing the evidence presented at trial. But the result is all too often the selection of jurors who are nominally neutral because they have their heads in the sand.