Exclusion of Blacks From Juries Raises Renewed Scrutiny

[LiberalArkie]

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.


Snip

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

[JDPriestly]

1. K&R.

If we are to make the changes we need in our justice system, we have to have a Democratic majority in Congress.

So start thinking now about how we can achieve that goal: a solid, unshakeable, Democratic majority in Congress.

How do we do it?

[madville]

2. Win state legislatures and governorships

Winning more state legislatures and governorships by 2020 census in order influence the redrawing of Congressional districts that will follow.

[awoke_in_2003]

17. Yep

Everyone concentrates on DC, but it all starts locally

[libdem4life]

3. Looks like we're going to have to learn how to deal with political sewer rats

oozing into the light.

I'd just as soon BLM go to these fights and grab the microphone...not to their allies.

Just a thought.

[madville]

4. This isn't about the prosecutors so much

Prosecutors want to get convictions, period. If they are prosecuting a black defendant, they are naturally going to want as few black people on the jury as possible. The defense should want to get as many black people on the jury as they can.

It's no different than them wanting as many women as possible on a jury if the case was against a man for domestic violence against his wife.

The problem here is the police arresting so many black people and referring the cases for prosecution in these areas. The police focus on black citizens many multiples more than white people, so prosecutors prosecute more black defendants which means they have to work to exclude more black jurors.

[Igel]

18. And the problem isn't so much race as group solidarity.

Too often we let our implicit biases color our judgment, so to speak. It works both ways--white racism against black defendents and black racism in accord with their biases. (Yes, if we want to say that you can't be racist if you don't have power, think about what "power" means in a given context. It doesn't matter who's president or in charge of Wall Street when you're in a jury room deciding guilt or innocence of some kid who's accused of murder or dealing drugs or rape--that jury room is the locus of power that's at issue, not Wall Street, not Congress, not Harvard, as the jury decides that kid's fate based on facts present, the omission of facts, and the jurors' implicit biases.)

[dsc]

5. there is only one viable solution to this problem

end preemptory challenges. Have a few, well defined, reasons that jurors can be struck. (they are a relative of the defendant or victim for example). Then otherwise, you get the first 12 jurors.

[Nye Bevan]

6. Yep. Abolish peremptory challenges (nt)

[4lbs]

7. "Jury of your peers". Well, if you are black, then shouldn't all 12 jury members be black?

Can't be any more peer than that.


EDIT:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/peer


noun


1. a person of the same legal status:
a jury of one's peers.


2. a person who is equal to another in abilities, qualifications, age, background, and social status.


3. something of equal worth or quality:
a sky-scraper without peer.

[Live and Learn]

8. Yikes, I don't want to be stuck with an all white jury.

Peers aren't necessarily the same color.

[uponit7771]

23. true

[uponit7771]

25. That would not be an irrational request

[Igel]

19. There are multiple layers of meaning.

You don't get to pick and choose.

"A person of the same legal status" seems to be the one your dictionary prefers.

If you prefer the second, that's fine, but don't pick and choose what's convenient now and change it later: equal to another in abilities, qualifications, age, background and social status. That may be a very, very small number, because even if of the same background (does that really just mean "race"?), all the rest have to be true.

I apparently can only be judged by somebody that's ABD in Slavic studies, qualified to teach certain subjects and drive a car, of similar age, from suburban Maryland (hey, that's my background) with a sojourn in Oregon and sabbath-keeping, and sort of middle class, married with child and an endocrine disorder.

Keep in mind, however, that if you want to go there, police can only be tried by police and Dylann Roof can only be tried by other white supremacists who want to massacre blacks. Enjoy that thought.

[davidn3600]

26. The courts don't interpret it that way

What jury of peers mean is citizens.

What the phrase is saying is they don't want professional jurors or for the government to be jurors. In order for the government to have the power to incarcerate someone (or even execute someone), that power has to be given by a jury made up of the citizenry.

It's in contrast to other systems. In Europe for example, some countries will actually put magistrates in with the jury deliberations suggesting that a jury can't do the job on the own because jurors are not educated on the law. In that case, the government is having direct influence on the jury. This is VERY common in Italy.

I get what you are saying. But your idea that it should only be made up as blacks for a black defendant can also backfire horribly. That means someone like George Zimmerman or even Dylann Roof can demand a white-only jury.

[Uncle Joe]

9. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, LiberalArkie.

[Liberal_in_LA]

10. kick!

[davidn3600]

11. What would help is if this country took jury duty more seriously

Jury duty has a really bad rap in this country. People actually make jokes that if you can't get out of jury duty, you're an idiot. People sometimes will come up with wild excuses for not showing up.

And a lot of people don't take it seriously. Even when they show up, you can tell they answer questions in ways hoping to get excused.

Blacks only make up 13% of the population. So when the court calls a random sample of 100, you'll only get about 13 black people. If several of them no-show, excused, or admit to have a bias....you've cut it down to very few potential black jurors for any particular trial. There is very little chance you will get more than a couple.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. But the problem with your argument is

that juries are "local" and if you have a locality with a larger-than-the-national percentage of the population that is black, then the perspective pool would have a higher percentage blacks available than the national average. The article goes on to say -

Caddo Parish is 48 percent black, and 83 percent of the defendants in the new study were black. But the typical 12-member criminal jury had fewer than four blacks on it, the report said. Much of the gap had nothing to do with peremptory strikes. Of the 8,318 potential jurors in the study, which reviewed 332 trials from 2003 to 2012, only 35 percent were black.

Professor Diamond suggested reasons for this. Blacks may be less likely to be on jury lists that are drawn from voter registration records, less likely to appear when called, more likely to qualify for hardship exemptions and more likely to be disqualified for felony convictions.

Still, prosecutors here used peremptory strikes against 46 percent of the black potential jurors who remained, and against 15 percent of others. In 93 percent of trials, prosecutors struck a higher percentage of blacks than of others.

So in the above example, with the parish being 46% black, then out of 100 prospective jurors, 46 would be black and 54 would be white. But in this case, of those jurors who DID show up, blacks were excluded at 3 times the rate as whites.

[Igel]

20. I'm missing something.

I'm not sure what.

But if you start off with a jury pool that's 35% black and end up with a composite pool of jurors such that the average jury has "less than 4 blacks on it"--with 12 jurors per jury, that puts the # between 25 and 33%--I'm not sure that's a huge discrepancy.

It makes sense if blacks were preferentially selected out of the jury pool for being put on juries. But that doesn't make sense, given my experience with how juries are selected.

[BumRushDaShow]

22. To clarify what they are trying to say -

- at least for what you are referring to - theoretically, the jury pool should be closer to 46% than 35% (and the article points out what may have caused that 10% drop - e.g., hardship, felonies, not on voter rolls where jury pools often come from). BUT given that reasoning, of the 35% who REMAIN in the pool who ARE available to be selected as jurors, those blacks are stricken from serving 3 times more than whites.

So if you strictly follow a quota percent based on race in the population and have a pool of 100 potential jurors, with 35 black and 65 white, the ratio for 12 jurors should have at least 4 blacks (or more if they were truly doing random picking) and 8 whites on average, based on their stats for that parish over that period of time.... rather than having 3 or less, which is what they were finding consistently. Yet technically, they could have an all-black jury if the first 12 happened to be black and fit criteria "acceptable" to both sides or they did more white strikes than black.

So it's a bit more going on than doing jury strikes to match a population percent. They were found to be removing blacks at a higher rate than they were removing whites despite the fact that whites are outnumbering blacks in the total available pool. And I expect the pools (whether daily or weekly or however they do them) may not have the same percentages of race as the average at each jury call. Some may be more heavily black than the 35% where others may be less... but the stats were finding it didn't matter.

[strategery blunder]

16. Well for poor people jury duty is what I'd call a "civic luxury"

It might pay $20/day. If you're lucky.

Now I'm not saying people should get rich off jury duty, or even want to seek it out for the money, but let's face it, there are millions of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, who literally cannot afford jury duty because while their employers might be legally compelled to give them time off, in most jurisdictions there is no requirement that such time off actually be paid.

So even if you only work part time and only get 6-hour shifts, jury duty still pays less than half what federal minimum wage would pay for the same shift--and as a prospective juror you're probably going to be sitting in the courtroom for a long time and you'll be lucky to get out while the idea of showing up to work late would still even be relevant.

In these cases, "getting out of jury duty" can literally mean the difference between making the rent, or missing rent and getting evicted. And that cuts down the jury pool largely to those who can afford to "serve." Which means poor defendants will almost always be judged by juries that are wealthier than them, hardly a jury of their peers.

I was fortunate enough to get picked for jury duty during a time when I was unemployed, so I didn't have to worry about those considerations. If I was selected now (I believe I have about another eight months on my recently-served exemption?) I would have to burn through savings to keep the bills paid. And I'm hardly living high on the hog--about 1300/month. And on that income level, I'm fortunate enough to have savings at all.

IMO if the state is going to demand that you take time off for work to adjudicate a proceeding you are not a party to (i.e. as a juror), the state should compensate you adequately for that time. I believe that paying/reimbursing jurors at the local minimum wage would be a fair compromise between removing economic hardship for the poor to serve and preventing jury duty from becoming something you just want to do "for the money." Most jurisdictions in the US pay far below that.

Requiring employers to offer paid time off for jury duty might be an alternative less costly to taxpayers, albeit one even less likely to be implemented given how much the Chamber of Commerce types would piss and moan about higher labor costs.

[Igel]

21. Where I live you get $6.

The parking garage charges $6. With the price of gas, you're in the hole.

It's possible to use mass transit for free. Assuming you live near mass transit and it's reasonable. I could use mass transit, but it would take over 90 minutes to go the 18 miles from where I live to where I have jury duty. (There's a courthouse 9 miles from where I live, but they refuse to let me do jury duty there. Something about needing a representative jury. Meh.)

[davidn3600]

27. Most states require employers to pay the salary up to a certain number of days for full-timers

I understand in certain situations it can burden the person. And in some professions it can cause serious issues (like doctors who have strict schedules with patient care). And some trials get ridiculously long too.

But for the vast majority of full time workers, there is no excuse, especially if the employer is paying the wages and the trial is less than a week. The length of the average trial is 2-5 days.

[strategery blunder]

28. Does nothing for part timers

2 part time jobs is very common for the demographic of which I speak.

[Enthusiast]

13. Overt systemic racism. This is fucked.

[1939]

15. Peremptory challenges have a long legal history and aren't in and of themselves racist.

Military courts-martial allow challenges for cause. They also allow the prosecution and the defense one peremptory challenge each. Possibly the solution may be to require the prosecution and the defense (plaintiff and defense in a civil case) to make as many challenges for cause as they can justify, but limit them to a finite number of peremptory challenges.

[jtuck004]

29. They were excluded because this is a racist country, and the lawyers were practicing discrimination.

It's not that hard to figure out.

[nikto]

30. A great issue for Black Lives Matter to bring people together on

We can all agree on this outrage, and work together to change it, in whatever locale of America it may be occurring in.