Supreme Court’s Juror Ruling Reinforces Batson’s Bar on Bias
The U.S. Supreme Court issued an important decision yesterday emphasizing the importance of eliminating racial bias in jury selection, according to the lawyer for a black murder defendant who won a retrial in the case.
The high court ruled a trial court erred when it allowed a prosecutor to remove a black juror with a peremptory challenge, citing the man’s nervous appearance and the fact that he had a scheduling conflict. The prosecutor had seated white jurors with conflicts that were at least as serious, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the court’s seven-member majority.
Stephen Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights told the Washington Post the court’s decision yesterday helped reinforce its 1986 ruling, Batson v. Kentucky, which barred race-based peremptory challenges.
“The court’s [Batson] decision saying you can’t discriminate in choosing juries was really being ignored,” Bright told the Post. “The court very resoundingly told judges and prosecutors that striking jurors on the basis of race must end.”
The New York Times called yesterday’s ruling, Snyder v. Louisiana, a “significant elaboration” of the court’s Batson ruling.
“While it was indisputably a landmark ruling, the Batson decision promised more than it has delivered, in the view of the many criminal defense lawyers who maintain that the prosecution practice of using peremptory strikes to remove black jurors remains widespread,” the Times wrote.
