Exclusion of Blacks From Juries Raises Renewed Scrutiny

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Exclusion of Blacks From Juries Raises Renewed Scrutiny
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/17/us/politics/exclusion-of-blacks-from-juries-raises-renewed-scrutiny.html?_r=0

SHREVEPORT, La. — Here are some reasons prosecutors have offered for excluding blacks from juries: They were young or old, single or divorced, religious or not, failed to make eye contact, lived in a poor part of town, had served in the military, had a hyphenated last name, displayed bad posture, were sullen, disrespectful or talkative, had long hair, wore a beard.

The prosecutors had all used peremptory challenges, which generally allow lawyers to dismiss potential jurors without offering an explanation. But the Supreme Court makes an exception: If lawyers are accused of racial discrimination in picking jurors, they must offer a neutral justification.

“Stupid reasons are O.K.,” said Shari S. Diamond, an expert on juries at Northwestern University School of Law. Ones offered in bad faith are not.

In Louisiana’s Caddo Parish, where Shreveport is the parish seat, a study to be released Monday has found that prosecutors used peremptory challenges three times as often to strike black potential jurors as others during the last decade. That is consistent with patterns researchers found earlier in Alabama, Louisiana and North Carolina, where prosecutors struck black jurors at double or triple the rates of others. In Georgia, prosecutors excluded every black prospective juror in a death penalty case against a black defendant, which the Supreme Court has agreed to review this fall.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/17/us/politics/exclusion-of-blacks-from-juries-raises-renewed-scrutiny.html?_r=0

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Type: Discussion • Score: 5 • Views: 872 • Replies: 17

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@bobsal u1553115,

And? Lawyers' sole purpose is to win their case. Not being politicians (yet) being PC doesn't enter into it.

In areas like the southern states, assuming racist sentiment can help you win. If you have a black defendent and you're the prosecutor, an all white (probably racist to some degree) jury will help you win much more so than any non-white people on the jury.

No one cares about pc at trial. One of a very few cases where the ends absolutely justify the means.

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Ah know nothing about jury nullification. Ah know nothing about birthing babies. (Only the second sentence is the famous line from Gone With The Wind, spoken by the actress Butterfly McQueen.)

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@bobsal u1553115,

Quote:

In Georgia, prosecutors excluded every black prospective juror in a death penalty case against a black defendant,

To me that makes sense for a lawyer to do. They are trying to get a juror that would typically choose for whichever side they are representing. If there is a black on trial especially if they were accused of a crime against a white person. Wouldn't it make sense to try to get someone that would not associate with the defendant if you were the prosecuter? And the opposite as the defending lawyer - wouldn't they prefer black people? And also similar age, background etc.

I think it is too difficult to be able to determine. Because you can have so many different reasons and often it is combined reasons - a young black man on trial - they may want to kick off any potential blacks, men, young people.

And the opposite on the other side.

It isn't just racist, it is ageist, sexist, and any other thing you can think of. The whole idea of jury selection is based on being biased ....

1 Reply

@Linkat,

A jury of ones peers is guarantied by the sixth amendment.

1 Reply

@bobsal u1553115,

The idea behind the challenges is to allow for as unbiased group of individuals as possible and since both sides have this same opportunity, I do not see a problem.

The peers part is supposed to mean the jurors are every day citizens...instead of elected or paid people who work within the court system. It isn't people exactly like them. It also states impartial jury of your peer's which one of those exactly like you would not be imparial.

1 Reply

@Linkat,

I agree with both of you.

Yes, the system is adversarial. The idea is that you have a set of rules that apply to both sides equally and then let them act within these rules to benefit their own case. Linkat is absolutely right that this is the system and that in theory it is fair.

However, the system is working in a way that, when viewed as a whole (taking all trial into account) is disproportionately excluding Blacks from being jury members. This is clearly not a good thing. Especially for trials involving Black defendants, a proportional amount of Black people should be serving on these trials (maybe not trial by trial... but certainly on aggregate when looking at all the trials together).

There are a couple of questions, I suppose.

1. Is the fact that the number of Blacks being excluded from juries because of the process of jury selection is disproportionately high troubling? This is undeniably true when you look at juries as a whole. In my opinion it is troubling.

2. If we can agree that this is a bad thing, then how do we fix the process?

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@bobsal u1553115,

Mr. Trump was recently excluded from NY jury duty. Was this a racial issue?

2 Replies

@Miller,

Trump wasn't excluded from a jury. He failed to respond to 6 summons to report for jury duty.

1 Reply

@parados,

parados wrote:

Trump wasn't excluded from a jury. He failed to respond to 6 summons to report for jury duty.

Civic duty really isn't Trump's thing.

2 Replies

@maxdancona,

Actually he failed to respond to 6 summons (probably wasn't top on his priority list although considering his run for president you would think it would be) - but then finally attended this summons - maybe he was threatened with contempt of court or maybe he decided hey get publicity -- and then when he attended he was not chosen for any jury.

1 Reply

@Miller,

Miller - thats not a salient question. Whatever the challenge was, and that would searchable public information, it had nothing at all to do with race.

More importantly, why was tRump ducking jury duty four times in the last five years?

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Quote:

Civic duty really isn't Trump's thing.

Neither is charm or believable comb-overs.

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@Linkat,

If I were a defense attorney I'd use one of my jury challenges on a potential jurist I knew had been ignoring summonses.

1 Reply

@bobsal u1553115,

My personal guess was he either forgot (which would more likely be one of his administrator forgot) - or he thought he could ignore it and get away with it.

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@bobsal u1553115,

well he, Trump, makes his opinions quite clear. He is not open minded so for the defense he is an unlikely individual to want on as a juror no matter his race or the defendents race. The potential jury could also be for a civil trial - in which case, the last thing you would want is someone representing a big corporation just there you would suspect he would be biased towards anyone suing.

Do we even know for a fact that his number was even selected? He might have shown up and no jury trials ended up being started that day - that happened to me once or his number might not even been pulled had there been a jury trial that day.

1 Reply

@Linkat,

His number wasn't selected. The news report said he was released with other potential jurors because of the low number of jury trials at this time.

0 Replies

@Linkat,

He felt he was too important for it. He's really not people person.

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Exclusion of Blacks From Juries Raises Renewed Scrutiny

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