Juries

All White Juries More Likely to Convict Black Defendants

Here is just one more reason why you need diverse juries.

WALB-TV: DUKE Study: All-white FLA juries convict black defendants more often

‎ Juries formed from all-white jury pools in Florida convicted black defendants 16 percent more often than white defendants, a gap that was nearly eliminated when at least one member of the jury pool was black, according to a Duke University-led study...to continue reading go here.

The study is available here.

ABA CLE (Oct 21) on the Prosecutor's Improper Use of Race Based Peremptories

The ABA is holding a CLE on October 21st to discuss a recent report (Illegal Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection: A Continuing Legacy) which examined the improper use of race based peremptory challenges by prosecutors in several Southern states. The report is available here and a NY Times article discussing the report is available here.  

The CLE format is both teleconference and live audio.  To register go here.

Program Description:

As recently reported in the New York Times, "Today, the practice of excluding blacks and other minorities from Southern juries remains widespread" and, according to the Equal Justice Initiative and defense lawyers, is "largely unchecked." There is a continuing indifference to prosecutors' race-based exclusions of prospective jurors.  Prosecutors have learned how to claim that their exclusions are race-neutral, even where they do not exclude white jurors whose answers during jury selection are indistinguishable from those of jurors of color whom the same prosecutors do exclude.

At this program, the renowned Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson, will discuss his organization's June 2010 report on this subject (a report which was the basis for the Times story and other media reports) and will join with other expert panelists and discussing the report's implications and what those who attend this program can do to rectify this situation.  There will be special focus on Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi.

Program Faculty

Veronice Coleman-Davis, President/CEO, National Institute for Law & Equality, Memphis, TN

Bryan Stevenson, Executive Director, Equal Justice Initiative, Montgomery, AL

Economists Study Jury Discrimination in Florida Criminal Jury Trials

Three economists (Shamena Anwar, Patrick Bayer, Randi Hjalmarsson) recently published the results of their study of Sarasota County, Florida jurors.  The study examined the impact of the racial composition of the jury on acquittal rates.  One noticeable finding of the study was that “all-white juries acquit whites more often and are less favorable to black versus white defendants when compared to juries with at least one black member.”

Jury Discrimination in Criminal Trials

This paper examines the impact of jury racial composition on trial outcomes using a unique dataset of all felony trials in Sarasota County, Florida between 2004 and 2009. We utilize a research design that exploits day-to-day variation in the composition of the jury pool to isolate quasi-random variation in the composition of the seated jury. We find strong evidence that all-white juries acquit whites more often and are less favorable to black versus white defendants when compared to juries with at least one black member. Using the Anwar-Fang rank order test, we find strong statistical evidence of discrimination on the basis of defendant race. These results are consistent with racial prejudice on the part of white jurors, black jurors, or both. Using a simple model of jury selection and decision-making, we replicate the entire set of empirical regularities observed in the data, including the fact that blacks in the jury pool are just as likely as whites to be seated. Simulations of the model suggest that jurors of each race are heterogeneous in the standards of evidence that they require to convict and that both black and white defendants would prefer to face jurors of the same race

h/tip to Freakonomics Blog

Study Examines the Impact of Race on Jury Service in the South

A new study (Illegal Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection: A Continuing Legacy) by the Equal Justice Initiative finds that prosecutors, especially in the South, continue to try and keep Blacks of juries. 

The  EJI describes the study as follows:

Nearly 135 years after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to eliminate racial discrimination in jury selection, people of color continue to be excluded from jury service because of their race, especially in serious criminal trials and death penalty cases. EJI today released a new report, “Illegal Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection: A Continuing Legacy,” which is the most comprehensive study of racial bias in jury selection since the United States Supreme Court tried to limit the practice in Batson v. Kentucky in 1986.

Other media outlets reporting on the study

ABA Journal: Blacks Still Widely Excluded from Southern Juries 

NYTimes: Study Finds Blacks Blocked from Southern Jury Service

The Diversity of New York Juries

Here is a blog post from the NY Times that discusses the diversity of New York City juries.  The posting talks about how jurors depending on which borough they live in react differenlty to evidence. The article also mentions pending (waiting for the governor's approval) state legislation that if signed into law would:

...require the commissioners of jurors in every county in the state to take statistics on the race, ethnicity, age and sex of every person who reports for jury duty. Proponents of the bill said they hoped the accumulated data would provide credence to their belief that minorities are not properly represented in jury pools in some counties. While that contention is mostly anecdotal, there is one study that has provided some evidence...

This has been a fairly busy news week for juries in NYC.  Several media reports picked up on an earlier story about the low felony jury conviction rate in the Bronx (43%).

Batson and Peremptory Challenges in Washington State

State v. Rhone

It "appears" that the state of Washington has created a new bright-line rule for the first prong of a Batson claim.  As most know, Batson established a three-part test to determine whether a prospective juror was peremptorily challenged for improper reasons e.g., because of the juror's race or gender. 

To maintain a successful Batson claim, one must first establish a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination in the use of a peremptory challenge against a juror. Second, the burden then shifts to the opposing party to come forward with a race-neutral explanation for challenging the prospective juror. Finally, the trial court determines whether the party making the initial challenge has established purposeful discrimination.

According to the dissent in State v. Rhone, which was adopted by the Washington Supreme Court Chief Justice, and thus became the rule of law:  

 a defendant establishes a  prima facie case of discrimination when, as here, the  record shows that the  State exercised a peremptory challenge against the sole remaining venire member of the defendant's constitutionally cognizable racial group.

In Rhone, the defendant was black and the prosecutor used a peremptory challenge to strike the only blck person in the venire (pool of potential jurors). Unfortunately, for the defendant in Rhone, this rule will be applied to all future trials and thus not impact his case.  For a summary of the Rhone case see, Wash. must explain when striking minority jurors.

What Does a Holdout Juror Do in the Digital Age?

Well, at least in the case of the State v. Markham, the juror sends texts and updates her Facebook page.  According to media reports, juror Takarra English, the lone holdout in the trial of Terrell Markham, sent text messages during deliberations and updated the status of her Facebook page to read as follows:

"in court these people are crazy and i cant wait til its over im dealing with people who are trying to play god wit sumones life and we all know THERES ONLY ONE GOD.....NO WEAPONS FORMED."

As the message might indicate, Ms. English was not getting along with her fellow jurors.  In fact, they removed her as foreperson.  However, this did not resvolve the 11-1 verdict split and the subsequent mistrial. To read more about the jury dynamics in this trial and what role race might have played see the link below.

Hung Markham Jury Illustrates Impact of Race on Justice

Court Hears Oral Argument in Berghuis v. Smith

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case of Berghuis v. Smith, 08-1402.  The transcripts from the oral argument can be found here.  Below is a prior AP report about the case.

State officials are asking the high court to overturn a decision by the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

That court threw out the murder conviction of Diapolis Smith for shooting a man in Grand Rapids in 1991.

Smith, who is black, was found guilty by an all-white jury. He said his constitutional right to a jury that represents the community was violated because there were only three blacks in the pool of 60 to 100 prospective jurors.

He argued that Kent County's prospective jurors in 1993 were routinely excused because of child care, a lack of transportation or a conflict with work. Smith also said blacks in Grand Rapids were being diverted to jury duty in a city court, which took them off the rolls for a year.

Blacks in the city made up 85 percent of all blacks in the county.

The appeals court said those decisions resulted in fewer African-Americans being eligible for service on circuit court juries, calling it "systematic exclusion."

For more background information on Berghuis see the posts below.

Courthouse News Service: Minorities on Juries Subject of High Court

Kalamazoo Gazette: Grand Rapids teacher's long fight over racial makeups of jury pools reaches ...

Kent Scheidegger of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation (Berghuis v. Smith) podcast (for the petitioner). 

James Sterling Lawrence, the attorney arguing before the Court on behalf of Diapolis Smith (for the respondent)

Challenges to the Racial Make-up of Detroit Juries

This is a bit late but still very interesting, especially to those who appear in federal court in Detroit. Attorneys for Alonzo Bates, a Detroit City Councilman, who was convicted of political corruption in 2006, recently filed a Habeas motion arguing among other things that the jury plan used by the Eastern District of Michigan (where their client was convicted) "systemically excludes blacks in favor of white jurors to sit on its grand and petit juries."  According to the Habeas motion which can be found here, "[o]f the nine counties within the district, African-Americans make up 22% of the population but make up only 9% of the jury wheel from which federal grand and petit juries are drawn."