prosecutors

STUDIES: Racial Bias in Jury Selection

A new study of trials in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, revealed that potential jurors who were black were much more likely to be struck from juries than non-blacks. The results were consistent with findings from Alabama, North Carolina, and other parts of Louisiana, highlighting an issue that will be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court this fall. In Caddo Parish, an area known for its many death sentences, prosecutors used peremptory strikes against 46% of black jurors, but only 15% of other jurors, according to the study by Reprieve Australia. The racial composition of the juries appeared to make a difference in the ultimate outcome of the cases. The study found that no defendants were acquitted by juries with 2 or fewer black jurors, but 19% were acquitted when 5 or more jurors were black. In an Alabama study, prosecutors used peremptory strikes to remove 82% of eligible black potential jurors from trials in which the death penalty was imposed. A study of death penalty cases in North Carolina found that prosecutors struck 53% of black potential jurors but only 26% of others.

 

In the death penalty case from Georgia that will be heard by the Supreme Court, Foster v. Chatman, all black prospective jurors were excluded from the jury. Prosecutors marked the names of black prospective jurors with a B and highlighted those names in green. Whenever such potential jurors had noted their race on questionnaires, prosecutors circled the word “black.”

 

“Exclusion of Blacks From Juries Raises Renewed Scrutiny,” New York Times, August 16, 2015; U. Noye, “Blackstrikes: A Study of the Racially Disparate Use of Peremptory Challenges by the Caddo Parish District Attorney’s office,” Reprieve Australia, August, 2015)

Georgia: As Court Prepares to Hear Juror Exclusion Case, A Look at Tactics That Exclude Blacks from Juries

June 25, 2015

This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a Georgia case, Foster v. Humphrey, in which an all-white jury sentenced a black man to death after prosecutors struck every black prospective juror in the case.
The Court will determine whether prosecutors violated the Court’s 1986 decision in Batson v. Kentucky, which banned the practice of dismissing potential jurors on the basis of race.
In anticipation of the case, The New Yorker published an analysis of tactics used to evade Batson challenges by providing race-neutral reasons for striking jurors.
In Philadelphia, a training video told new prosecutors, “When you do have a black juror, you question them at length. And on this little sheet that you have, mark something down that you can articulate later….You may want to ask more questions of those people so it gives you more ammunition to make an articulable reason as to why you are striking them, not for race.”
In the 1990s, prosecutors in North Carolina — whose use of peremptory strikes have been held to violate that state’s Racial Justice Act — held training sessions featuring a handout titled, “Batson Justifications: Articulating Juror Negatives.” Defense attorneys can challenge these reasons, but such challenges are rarely successful.
Stephen Bright, president of the Southern Center for Human Rights, who is representing Foster, said, “You’re asking the judge to say that the prosecutor intentionally discriminated on the basis of race, and that he lied about it. That’s very difficult psychologically for the average judge.”
Justice Thurgood Marshall recommended banning peremptory strikes so as to stop racial bias in jury selection. Louisiana Capital Assistance Center director Richard Bourke suggests a more politically realistic reform: track the racial makeup of juries in order to raise public awareness of bias.
Source: DPIC, June 24, 2015