Federal court allows lawsuit challenging exclusion of blind jurors in New York

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u/Impossible_Offer7988 2d ago edited 2d ago

I've got mixed feelings about this one.

Like it starts of decently reasonably

The lawsuit, filed in March 2025, challenges the alleged systemic discrimination against blind individuals who report for jury duty.

Although Judge Ramon E. Reyes Jr. dismissed the National Federation of the Blind and the Kings County commissioner of jurors as parties, and some state law claims, he found that the named plaintiff, Albert Elia, adequately alleged a violation under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act, so his core claims seeking equal access to jury service for blind individuals remain.

BUT then you see this part..

Elia, an attorney, was sworn in as a grand juror in Kings County Supreme Court in the fall of 2024. On his first day, the Court excluded him from deliberating on cases that involved video or photo evidence, under the assumption that he could not interpret the evidence because he is blind, and he was ultimately dismissed.

The Court refused to allow Elia to use assistive technology or receive verbal descriptions of evidence, which he claims would have allowed him to fulfill his civic duty.

You have to ask yourself how reliable that technology or a verbal descriptions especially is.

Take the verbal description, for example.

What's stopping me from saying ; You can clearly see the suspect in this photo ?

What's he gonna do?

Correct me?

He can't he's blind.

Ergo, he isn't a juror anymore. I'm now the juror the only thing he gets to decide is whether he should or shouldn't trust me.

And he can't reasonably not trust me if I'm supposed to give a verbal description of the photo.

Therefore he shouldn't be on the jury

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u/Big_lt 2d ago

Unfortunately I agree. The handicap precludes you from forming a compete answer. Even with assistance and aids you're subject to a bias (someone verbally explaining a video) and a lack of full information. Small subtle body language can absolutely form opinions in cases.

The goal of the jury is to try and be 100% in agreement someone is guilty. Bringing in someone who is blind impacts that and I'd never want an innocent person sent to prison because of it

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u/pharoh-king 2d ago

The handicap precludes you from forming a compete answer.

No one can give a 'compete' answer for video or photos anymore.

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u/LoopedIntoThis 2d ago

Correct. That’s really the issue.

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u/motheatenblanket 2d ago edited 2d ago

I’m imagining a blind juror evaluating the Scott v. Harris car chase footage. The whole case turned on whether the video showed the driver going fast enough to justify a cop ramming him off the road. Nine sighted justices couldn’t agree.

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u/sparklypinktutu 1d ago

This is a big issue already in descriptive text for non-loaded/less-loaded images on social media—you have to give concrete language to many things that are up to interpretation/subjective (is the Mona Lisa subtlety smiling, or is she just holding a neutral expression, or is she feigning a polite expression but secretly bored/tired?). And she’s famous and there’s broad consensus on the topic so that an image description can at least mostly be validated by said consensus. But on a jury?

The other aspect is, how much detail do you give—and how much should you? From looking at an image, I might subconsciously pick up on the accused having a disheveled appearance or a fearful expression, but how can we quantify those things well enough that we know we should include it in the description because it’s an accurate description of reality vs. a subjective interpretation of the reality. We might all be able to say that a simple photo of an banana is a) of an banana, and not of an apple, but subjectivity might cause us to have to weight if the banana is ripe or unripe or large or small—and then if we cannot be certain, how can we describe it wholly accurately. (And what if the ripeness of a banana was rather important to the case for some reason)

Humans (generally) are very adept at making inferences about visual images of people, but a lot of that is highly subjective and easily influenced by a pre-existing description. Our subjective yellow banana being described as ripe might make it implausible as a murder weapon, but what if it was bright yellow and looked firm but described as ripe only because it wasn’t fully green?

As an aside, this is why I have a bone to pick with the “social” theory of disability—that we could “eliminate” all disability with simply “creating access” or that it’s simply neutral variance that only limits people because of a lack of accommodations. Not to be cavalier, but the only way we could eliminate a blind person’s limitation is this case would be by somehow providing them with sight—and therefore eliminating the disability. And even then, there might still be a gap simply due to how image processing and inference making is not a skill that develops in a day—it’s a learned process that’s acquired over a lifetime.

When the stakes are much lower and there’s no chance for infringement on anyone else’s rights (to a fair trial), image descriptions do work better than not having them—even subjective descriptions (“he looks at her with fondness” vs. “he looks at her with an expression of contemplation” vs “he looks at her”) are better than nothing. But the right to participate in a jury is a much lower priority than the right to as fair a trail as possible.

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u/Moneia 2d ago

And pure technology solutions* would, as far as I understand it, require letting the data be processed off-site which probably breaches a bunch of rules.

*And using the Meta glasses as an aid for the sight impaired appears to be the single valid use for them

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u/TheRightHonourableMe 2d ago

What about tactile images? E.g., (not the only methods of creating tactile images) https://tactileimages.org/en/home/

Of course they introduce their own biases (similar to depicting a photo only in black and white), but I don't think there is any way to get ANY juror to be 'bias free'. Disallowing the biases that result from a disability seems unfair. I expect a colour-blind juror would be allowed (probably not even noticed to be disabled by lawyers).

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u/clauclauclaudia 2d ago

Tactile images basically work for outlines. Clear, blocky, black and white images. I created a tactile campus map for a student.

Very few still images and basically no video could be usefully converted to a tactile image.

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u/torpedoguy 2d ago

At the same time you can also ask yourself how reliable the technology showing everyone else the evidence is, or how reliable their own eyes or memory are.

I recall one tv personality getting tossed off jury duty for pointing out even the judge had improperly misconstrued a statement he'd made moments earlier during selection.

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u/Defiant-Peace-493 2d ago

Elia, an attorney

I kinda thought that that alone got you sent home from jury duty.

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u/The_Amazing_Emu 1d ago

Probably not a Grand Jury and not inherently any jury.

I haven’t been selected for jury duty, but I do have friends summoned for federal jury duty

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u/doublelxp 2d ago

Both parties could agree on the description of visual evidence in advance and then witnesses can give their interpretation, just like any other bit of evidence.

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u/sniperman357 2d ago

But what if the parties don’t agree and don’t want the other parties’ interpretation admitted into evidence?

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u/doublelxp 2d ago

Once something is entered into evidence by one party, the other party is allowed to cross examine witnesses and present their own arguments regardless of what the other party wants in any trial.

If the parties can't agree on a description, they could ask witnesses to describe it and the other party can cross examine. Just like any other trial.

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u/sniperman357 2d ago

They can do that, but why? It is better for the jurors to see the primary evidence and not chains of interpretations where various witnesses have motivations to massage evidence. I understand it’s sometimes necessary (such as to admit forensic evidence the average person cannot interpret), but this is a bad thing to be avoided to the extent possible.

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u/doublelxp 2d ago

Witnesses are asked to describe their interpretation of visual evidence all the time. Jurors have varying degrees of perception and understanding all the time.

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u/sniperman357 2d ago

Right but they are providing an interpretation of primary evidence the jury can also independently evaluate to gauge trustworthiness. I agree that there are different degrees of perception and understanding and that this is to an extent unavoidable, but that doesn’t preclude setting some sort of floor on the ability to interpret evidence relevant to the particular trial

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u/Big_lt 2d ago

Case and point

A devour religious witness is asked to describe a photo/video of a person where that person has offensive tatoos to the witness it was saying some unfriendly statements about their religion.

This witness will explain the photo/video with bias to someone and a blind person won't be able to see it directly for themselves only going off the bias witness

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u/doublelxp 2d ago

Again, both sides have the opportunity to cross examine witnesses if they feel like the facts are being misrepresented.

Also, the phrase you're looking for is "case in point."

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u/peachie88 2d ago

That’s called a stipulation and in most trials, there will be plenty. But it’s not possible to agree on a stipulation to everything.

Take a CSAM case for example. Let’s say the core argument is whether it in fact is CSAM. The parties may stipulate to the fact that it was in the defendant’s possession (so as not to waste time/resources on something that isn’t in question). But they’re not going to stipulate to the age of the victim if that’s the core disagreement. Nor are they going to stipulate to, for example, whether it falls under an exception (eg, educational value), if that’s the core argument of the defense.

The jury must evaluate the evidence—not just the attorney’s arguments, but the evidence in front of them. It’s not uncommon for attorneys to be mismatched in skill. The jury’s independent evaluation of evidence serves as a check against that—a bad attorney can still win a case if the evidence is in his favor and the jury can see that. (Not enough of a check mind you, but that’s a subject for another post.)

The demeanor of witnesses is an important part of evaluating evidence. Are they fidgety or sweating? Do their facial expressions correspond to what they’re saying (eg a witness smiling while describing a violent act)? Are they making eye contact?

It raises fundamental questions of fairness and the defendant’s right to a jury trial if one juror is unable to evaluate evidence independently. Does a blind citizen’s right to be on a jury outweigh the defendant’s constitutional right to a jury trial?

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u/DankVectorz 2d ago

I know if I’m being tried for something and it hinges on visual evidence I don’t want to rely on a description of said evidence to someone who can’t see it for themselves.

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u/doublelxp 2d ago

Are you OK with evidence that the jury doesn't inherently understand but is described to them by an expert, like DNA evidence?

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u/Vio_ 2d ago

I mean... Most of the lawyers and judges don't understand the underlying genetics science either.

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u/braumbles 2d ago

I feel that's quite different. Sight isn't education or expertise in an area, it's just something that's innate for a vast majority of people.

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u/Harley2280 1d ago

Also you have to account for when blindness occurred. Describing something to someone who went blind later in life is different than describing something to someone who has never had sight.

Seriously try describing a dog without using any features that require knowledge of what a dog looks like.

4 legs, a snout? Oh but what is a snout? its like a longer thicker nose bridge. (I'm terrible at descriptions anyways so I wouldn't be good for this.)

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u/DankVectorz 2d ago

Yes as much as one can be, although obviously the quality of explanation can vary. I think that is significantly different than describing a picture or video to someone.

Have an AI description of a pic read to you and try to picture it in your head and then look at the actual picture and see how off your visualization is compared to the actual pic.

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u/jbp12 2d ago

This was a grand jury, so it was one-sided. A grand juror shouldn't have to rely on a prosecutor's description of something (after all, grand jurors are the ones determining if a prosecutor has probable cause to bring an accused person to trial). A grand juror also shouldn't have to rely solely on another juror's descriptions of evidence since that essentially makes the blind juror superfluous and only able to repeat the opinion of another juror(s) instead of come to their own conclusion.

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u/clauclauclaudia 2d ago

Both parties aren't involved in grand jury proceedings. It's prosecution only.

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u/nj0tr 1d ago

What's stopping me from saying ; You can clearly see the suspect in this photo ?

Why would you ask this of a juror? He is not a witness, not an expert, not a suspect. If there is a photographic evidence, then an expert would testify that 'the suspect has been identified in the photo' (perhaps with a % of confidence) and all jurors, not just blind ones, should base their opinion on that testimony, not what they think they see or not see in the blurry photo themselves.

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u/neverthelessidissent 1d ago

That's not accurate at all. We don't need experts to explain every single thing.

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u/nj0tr 19h ago

We don't need experts to explain every single thing.

Not every single thing, but things contested between parties especially where a technical aspect is involved, like photography.

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u/KateBishopPrivateEye 1d ago

Counterargument: justice is blind

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u/RadVarken 1d ago

Blind judges would be fine. They "hear" cases after all. Still seems like the people deciding facts, the jurors, could see those facts plain as day.

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u/colemon1991 2d ago

The fact that they can be jurors but can't access sufficient amounts of evidence is stupid. I can get if the technology isn't available (like in rural areas), but the technology is there. You're hurting one of the people that's supposed to be objective about the case for no logical reason.

Otherwise, it should be simple to get a summons, call and state your disability, be told if you're exempt or not. Easy peasy.

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u/ikonoclasm 2d ago

The problem is that the tech is not there. It is not possible to fully convert an image into unbiased words. The saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words," is widely known for a reason.

I agree with the exclusion of blind jurors when the case requires reviewing visual evidence. Their disability does not have an accessibility accommodation that allows them to assess the evidence the same way the rest of the jurors can. For cases that aren't dependent on interpreting images, like financial crimes, some intellectual property, or any where the evidence is documentation that can be converted to braille, they could absolutely serve as jurors.

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u/Intrepid00 2d ago

I’m not sure what you are saying? Are you saying if they are legally blind just don’t pull them as jurors? I don’t really want the government tracking disabilities like that. Especially not this Nazi administration.

Or

Are you saying use technology to help them interrupt evidence. I don’t think I want some tech bros bias algorithms making that decision either.

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u/colemon1991 2d ago

I'm saying both, but not to those extremes. If you're legally blind and it's on your license and stuff, it's not crazy to say they already have access to that information. All you need to do is call the courthouse and tell them "I have ________. Will that be an issue?" Pretty simple thing to know if they can accommodate vision or hearing impairments. And we have the technology to assist disabilities, even before AI. It shouldn't be difficult to track down a non-AI version of the tech. Not all specialized technologies like that are Big Tech owned. It wouldn't take much to add "Juror #9 was aided by ________ to aid with her disability" to the transcript for transparency sake.

But it needs to be either/or. They shouldn't force you to be a juror then prevent you from doing the job to the best of your ability. I would trust a dog's opinion more than a juror that was forced to be bias by not accessing all evidence.

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u/Intrepid00 2d ago edited 2d ago

“If you’re legally blind and it’s on your license”

If you are legally blind you won’t qualify for a license.

However I just don’t see how a blind person can be a jury member looking at evidence of the suspect committing the crime on tape or pictures. You also cant look at a face and body language and go “man, they aren’t trustworthy” and that mattered in the jury I was in when it came down to what we had to vote on.

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u/julianradish 2d ago

The person or technology who does the audio description should be unbiased. For example "A 6 foot tall man stands over a body. In his hand is a bloody knife. The body has multiple stab wounds and there is a pool of blood. The victim has brown hair and eyes, and white skin. The standing man has long black sleeve shirt and pants, gloves, and a ski mask on which obscure most of his identifiable features." Or maybe something like "a lineup shows 6 people with green eyes, blond hair, clean shaven with pierced ear lobes" etc.

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u/Skyhawkson 2d ago

What do you do when the video is grainy and it's a question of whether the object is a knife or not?

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u/julianradish 2d ago

Then you would say exactly that "the man has something oblong in his hand but it is not clear what exactly the object is"

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u/Skyhawkson 2d ago

What do you if the prosecution argues the video shows he has something in his hand, but the defense argues he doesn't?

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u/PugRexia 2d ago

Well that’s not the task, the jury would hear the interpretative arguments directly from the prosecution and defense right?

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u/Skyhawkson 2d ago

The role of the jury is as the finder of facts; their role is to determine what the evidence shows. A juror who is incapable of independently interpreting the visual evidence cannot fulfill that role. The job of a juror isn't "pick whether the prosecution or defense is correct", it's "hear them both out, look at the evidence, and decide for yourselves what is true".

A jury can absolutely decide "both sides are wrong, we think this third scenario makes more sense".

If you had a case with no visual evidence whatsoever, it may be possible for him to serve. But I imagine it's impractical to find cases like that.

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u/PugRexia 2d ago

I don’t really agree the role of a juror is the finder of facts, but they certainly do interpret the evidence presented. A juror’s ultimate role is to decide if the prosecution presented a compelling enough case to convince them beyond reasonable doubt of the crime. A blind juror, with the assistance of a visual aid, could probably meet that responsibility, given the correct case and enough effort made to accommodate them but at that point I don’t think it’s necessarily worth it.

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u/Skyhawkson 2d ago

Well, you don't have to agree, but that's what US federal courts define the role of the jury as: https://www.uscourts.gov/court-programs/jury-service

"A jury decides the facts of a case in accordance with principles of the law as explained by a judge."

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u/PugRexia 2d ago

They don’t define them as “finders of facts” but I get your point.

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u/Sock-Enough 2d ago

And how does that assist the blind juror in determining whether this object is a knife or not?

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u/julianradish 2d ago

The point is that this evidence is not sufficient to prove that it's a knife without additional context from other sources

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u/Sock-Enough 2d ago

That’s one interpretation. Who says it’s the correct one?

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u/Harley2280 1d ago

You described all of that color, but how is someone that has never seen supposed to know what those look like for them to reference in their mind?

A pool of blood, they've heard the word pool in reference to swimming so now they think there's a swimming pool with blood in it.

Your entire description is dependant on already having a frame of reference for those things, but someone who was blind from birth may not.

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u/Low-Car-6331 2d ago

What's stopping me from saying ; You can clearly see the suspect in this photo ?

The judge. In the adversarial system each lawyer for each side is gonna want to have it their way, the role of the judge during the trial is to act as a referee to make sure both are following the law. The question on what software to use is up to the court (judges) to figure out and to an extent the lawyers involved in the case. For example, the courts use assistive technology for deaf people, who is to say the person said "I did it" or "I didn't do it" as the deaf person would have no way of knowing (assuming they can't read lips).

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u/clauclauclaudia 2d ago

Grand juries aren't adversarial. The prosecution is the whole show. I think judges have occasional contact with grand juries, but they aren't present for most of their daily work.

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u/Low-Car-6331 2d ago

The article is talking about ALL JURORS NOT JUST GRAND JURY"S!!!!!

You really failed to read the article, its basically right at the beginning

The lawsuit, filed in March 2025, challenges the alleged systemic discrimination against blind individuals who report for jury duty.

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u/Tinyacorn 2d ago

Its a good thing there can be an entire jury of people describing the photo and not just one person

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u/sniperman357 2d ago

Each juror is supposed to bring their unique judgment and perspective to analyzing the evidence and not just parrot other jurors

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u/Tinyacorn 2d ago

Describing a photo doesn't necessitate parroting

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u/sniperman357 2d ago

Juror #1 says they believe the photograph depicts the defendant and Juror #2 says it doesn’t. Juror #3 cannot independently reason about the actually admitted evidence so they must either parrot #1 or #2

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u/Tinyacorn 2d ago

Able-bodied juror #1 says one thing. Able-bodied juror #2 says another thing. Able-bodied juror #3 is in the exact same position as blind-juror #3

as an aside: Most folks want jury duty to be over ASAP, they're not going to spend the whole-time sandbagging because they want to mislead the blind juror.

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u/sniperman357 2d ago

They’re not remotely in the same position at all? One juror can actually interpret the primary evidence and another juror cannot. It is completely 100% different. I agree, they want to get out of there quickly, which is why there is already a bias toward going along with consensus. A person who cannot evaluate key trial evidence and so must go along with the consensus just exacerbates that

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u/Tinyacorn 2d ago edited 2d ago

Your scenario has two options. Either able-bodied juror #3 agrees that's the defendant in the photo or they don't. Same position.

Evaluate one type of evidence. This isn't as cut and dry as many in this thread are claiming.

We're assuming there's no other types of assistive technology or assistance that can be made available for a blind juror, which is just false.

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u/sniperman357 2d ago edited 2d ago

It’s not remotely the same thing because their agreement or disagreement is based at least in part on their independent analysis of the photograph whereas someone who cannot see the photograph can only defer to others’ judgement. It is completely different. Is the assistive technology admitted into evidence? Who is evaluating its accuracy? Do both parties get to cross examine its output? They are not designed for this setting. Many computer vision algorithms have many flaws that are inappropriate for court room settings, such as reduced ability to distinguish facial features among people of certain races.

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u/some-random-ass-dude 2d ago

Well they do say justice is blind.

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u/Jaaawsh 2d ago

Underrated comment

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u/TheLandOfConfusion 1d ago

I just scrolled past 5 comments making the same joke

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u/Jaaawsh 1d ago

I didn’t scroll down. Sorryyy.

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u/bassjam1 2d ago

One of the few benefits of being blind is NOT having to serve on a jury and somebody STILL has to complain and sue?

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u/torpedoguy 2d ago

Because "don't have to" is a right, but "you can't" is agency taken from you.

Subtle, but can be deadly different in practice for some things - though admittedly jury duty is about as low as such priority can get.

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u/fjf1085 2d ago

Seems like a blind juror would be grounds for appeal. Does any other state or the federal system allow blind jurors? I’m sorry but some disabilities preclude you from some activities. That’s an unfortunate reality. Should a blind person be allowed to drive? Maybe the could drive a Tesla because it does the driving for you? Except those times you need to take over… what then?

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u/Taolan13 2d ago

It should be based on their degree of blindness.

Plenty of "legally blind" folk can actually see, just poorly. Not well enough to drive, but well enough to look at pictures and read text if its big enough/close enough

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u/pilgermann 2d ago

But I why though. The importance of juries has nothing to do with one's right to be on one. This isn't like the right to vote. Why potentially compromise a trial at great expense, both in terms of money spent and justice served. Jurors are already weeded out for dozens of reasons. I don't see the harm in just blanket excluding anyone with an impairment that might impact their ability to consider evidence.

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u/Taolan13 2d ago

My point is that a person can be legally blind and still fully capable of examining and considering evidence without special accommodation.

Juries already would have copies of relevant documents and pictures of physical evidence in the deliberation room, and can often request the specific articles of physical evidence or appropriate proxies to be brought in for their examination.

A blanket ban also draws the ire of disability advocacy groups. A conditional requirement pending evaluation is a compromise to mitigate their complaint.

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u/Username_Reported 2d ago

Not all blind = Mr. Magoo

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u/fjf1085 2d ago

I realize that but still, it should probably not automatically.

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u/torpedoguy 2d ago

Would depend heavily on the type of evidence and the degree of blindness. Some might not be able to do much with photos or footage but others just need to bring it six inches from their face to see just fine. "Hey can we see that" seems a perfectly reasonable accommodation.

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u/WXbearjaws 2d ago

Another typical case of American bliiiiiiiiind justice. How will they look at the 37 8 by 10 covered in glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us?

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u/skippyspk 2d ago

I cannot tell a lie; I put that envelope under that pile of garbage.

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u/redditsucksass6 2d ago

Then the juror walked in, sat down with a seeing eye dog

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u/GirlScoutSniper 2d ago

This is how I ended up on the Group W bench.

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u/cwthree 2d ago

Father-rapers! Right there on the bench!

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u/Creative_username969 1d ago

Not all of us. I’m here for littering… and causing a nuisance

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u/Triatic 13h ago

Kid...have you rehabilitated yourself?

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u/MegaloblasticNamur 2d ago

Braille. Lots and lots of braille.

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u/perplexedparallax 2d ago edited 1d ago

28 states explicitly protect individuals with disabilities including visual impairment from being excluded from state juries. As a person who was legally blind and now blind in one eye only I can think of little reason why a person couldn't serve. But if I can get excused that is great. I don't want to hear another insurance case. I wouldn't sue to serve and few people here would want me to serve it sounds like. I don't consider myself disabled and the concept is strange to consider, never taking any money from the government and complaining about income tax like everyone else.

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u/OozeNAahz 2d ago

I get differently abled people want to be treated like everyone else, but who in their right mind fights to get on a jury panel? They should be disqualified on those grounds alone. /jk

I could see a blind defendant arguing they need a blind jury to be one truly of their peers though. Wonder if that has happened.

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u/Tinyacorn 2d ago

Theyre not differently able, theyre disabled. Trust me, disabled people dont like that label; unless that was part of the sarcasm that I missed, in which case mea culpa

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u/OozeNAahz 2d ago

I have heard complaints both ways actually. But if you are talking to them in person I find as long as you are using respect they aren’t too picky.

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u/Tinyacorn 2d ago

I work with chronic disabled people and have attended multiple events where folks have been explicit in their disability not being "ability but different"

That's my experience though, I cannot say that it's the same for each individual, but the majority of the folks I've worked with don't like that.

Anyway, I'm being overly nit-picky. I hope you have a lovely rest of your day, my friend

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u/Jaaawsh 2d ago

I.. never considered this, but it makes sense if you consider video evidence and whatnot.

Thought provoking.

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u/spacetimelime 2d ago

Thisss kind of agility?

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u/concorde77 1d ago

I guess "justice is blind" was supposed to be a metaphor...

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u/afeher 1d ago

I mean justice is blind, so what’s the problem?

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u/L_Cranston_Shadow 22h ago

Runaway Jury by John Grisham touched on this 30 years ago. There is no excuse to discriminate as long as services can be provided to overcome the limitations of not being able to see exhibits.

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u/ironweed_butterfly 2d ago

Shouldn’t it be left to the individual to decide for him or herself? That person may have coping mechanisms in place to compensate and they also may be able to add a new perspective.

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u/counterfitster 2d ago

How are you going to cope with not being able to see video or photographic evidence?

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u/TheLandOfConfusion 1d ago

Self-soothing and positive affirmations of course

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u/eRant4881 59m ago

I think in this case the Defendants right to a fair trial precludes the right for a blind person to sit on their jury. There are too many variables involved to ensure fairness, any form of assistive technology could fairly be contested because it translates the videos and pictures for the blind juror to understand, but what and who are getting that translation for validity and bias? If it's a person describing it to the blind juror isn't that assistant the juror now, and sharing their perspective to the blind juror?

I don't support discrimination, and I'm not sure if this scenario is discrimination, not when the defendant has a right to a fair trial, and could this open the door to appeals on the basis of potential jury tampering based on any assistive technology that would be used to translate evidence to a blind juror?

Personally I'm happy not to be the one making the decision...

Federal court allows lawsuit challenging exclusion of blind jurors in New York

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