Highbrow Magazine - jury selection https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/jury-selection en Racial Bias and the Jury Selection Process https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/9624-racial-bias-and-jury-selection-process <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 12/24/2018 - 13:22</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1jury_painting_by_john_mogran.jpg?itok=ZW01al2G"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1jury_painting_by_john_mogran.jpg?itok=ZW01al2G" width="480" height="272" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>This is an excerpt from an article originally published in The Louisiana Weekly. Read the rest <a href="http://www.louisianaweekly.com/applying-racial-bias-during-jury-selection-process-is-considered-an-american-tradition/">here.</a></strong></p> <p> </p> <p>(NNPA Newswire) — “One of the most pernicious forms of racial discrimination and injustice in the United States criminal justice system is the racially-motivated use of prosecutorial peremptory challenges during the jury selection process,” said Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., the president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Black Americans and other people of color are systematically removed from juries by prosecutors because of their race and skin color. I define this prosecutorial behavior as judicial preemptory racism,” Chavis said.</p> <p> </p> <p>And, as one of the legendary Wilmington 10, Chavis has unique insight.</p> <p> </p> <p>In 1972, Chavis, who is an icon in the Civil Rights Movement, and nine others were falsely accused and convicted of arson in Wilmington, North Carolina, after a white-owned grocery store was set ablaze during race riots that followed a police officer’s fatal shooting of a Black teenager.</p> <p> </p> <p>Three of the state’s main witnesses later changed their testimony and, in 1980 — eight years after their sentencing — Chavis and the others were freed when the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia threw out their convictions. In overturning the convictions, the Court noted that perjury and prosecutorial misconduct were factors in the original verdicts.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2jury.jpg" style="height:421px; width:514px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Rev. Dr. William Barber, president of the North Carolina Chapter of the NAACP, and the founder of the Moral Mondays Movement, told reporters that notes taken by former Pender County prosecutor Jay Stroud showed that he lied to a judge to get a mistrial so he could pick another jury in the Wilmington case – he then used a race-based strategy during jury selection.</p> <p> </p> <p>While the Wilmington 10 defendants were eventually exonerated, their case is just the exception and not the rule when it comes to addressing outcomes resulting from commonly practiced (and currently legal) race-based strategies associated with the use of peremptory challenges to strike jurors.</p> <p> </p> <p>“For an individual defendant or anyone going to trial, who is on their particular jury and who is their particular judge is more important than who is on the Supreme Court,” said Nora V. Demleitner, a Roy L. Steinheimer Jr. Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University School of Law in Virginia.</p> <p> </p> <p>Demleitner’s colleague and law professor, Ronald Wright, recently wrote an opinion column headlined: “Yes, Jury Selection is as Racist as You Think, Now We Have Proof.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“Sadly, this research finding confirms what we feared. The ‘jury of one’s peers’ isn’t real,” Demleitner told NNPA Newswire. “Racism, couched in neutral language, renders it impossible,” she said.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3jury.jpg" style="height:362px; width:544px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>The only cure for replacing the veiled racism associated with “colorblind” [juror selection] practices is to remove the blinders, said Dr. Lorenzo Morris, a professor of political science at Howard University.</p> <p> </p> <p>“The assertion that there is no substantial differential racial impact in jury selection, however well-intended, has been largely discredited by research and diminished by detached observation,” said Dr. Lorenzo Morris, a professor of political science at Howard University. “Still,” he said, “the probable remedies are not easy to implement.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“Removing the blinders effectively means becoming somewhat color-conscious in the evaluation of jury selection practices,” Morris said.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>This is an excerpt from an article originally published in The Louisiana Weekly. Read the rest <a href="http://www.louisianaweekly.com/applying-racial-bias-during-jury-selection-process-is-considered-an-american-tradition/">here.</a></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>This article originally published in the December 17, 2018 print edition of <em>The Louisiana Weekly</em> newspaper.</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/benjamin-chavis" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">benjamin chavis</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/jury-selection" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">jury selection</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/racial-bias" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">racial bias</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/discrimination" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">discrimination</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/blacks" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">blacks</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/minorities" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">minorities</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/courts" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">courts</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/judge-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">judge</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Stacy M. Brown</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Google Images; Wikipedia Commons</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 24 Dec 2018 18:22:26 +0000 tara 8442 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/9624-racial-bias-and-jury-selection-process#comments How Will an All-Female Jury Affect the Outcome of the Zimmerman Trial? https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/2550-how-will-all-female-jury-affect-outcome-zimmerman-trial <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Tue, 06/25/2013 - 09:40</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1zimmerman%20%28Chris%20Waldeck%20Flickr%29.jpg?itok=7gWkyWxy"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1zimmerman%20%28Chris%20Waldeck%20Flickr%29.jpg?itok=7gWkyWxy" width="331" height="415" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> From <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2013/06/concerns-over-all-female-jury-in-zimmerman-case-are-baseless.php">New America Media</a>:</p> <p>  </p> <p> The speculation has been nonstop over whether an all-female jury is a good or bad thing for accused Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman. There is no consensus on this. But the view of women jurors in major case trials is rife with myths, stereotypes, and preconceptions. Researchers have found that in the decades before and even after the Supreme Court ruling in 1979 that knocked out biased exclusions of jurors based on gender, there’s still the deeply embedded notion that women jurors are different than men in that they are more easily swayed by emotions, more likely to empathize with defendants and less predictable in how they will decide a case, even one that on the surface appears to be a lock for the prosecution.</p> <p>  </p> <p> A series of informal studies and the experiences of defense attorneys in major criminal cases have continued to try to find differences between female and male juries and jurors.</p> <p>  </p> <p> They claim that women are more compassionate than men in most criminal cases, but can be ruthless when it comes to sex crimes. Men tend to be harder on defendants. Women are sympathetic to mistreatment. As one seasoned criminal defense attorney noted, "Like black people, they are sensitive to injustice because they have had a lot of it put on them."</p> <p>  </p> <p> Majority female juries came under much scrutiny and criticism after they voted to acquit O.J. Simpson. The criticism was not just that their decision to acquit Simpson allegedly was a race biased decision but also that as females they were supposedly more sympathetic to the defense. Jurors that spoke on the record following the verdict hotly denied that race, gender or empathy toward celebrity Simpson had anything to do with their decision to acquit him. They were virtually unanimous that the prosecution presented a jumbled, slipshod, and badly tainted case that came nowhere close to meeting the hard legal requirement for conviction of guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Most legal experts, when the emotional dust finally settled, agreed that the prosecution badly bungled the case.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/mediummartincase.jpg" style="width: 620px; height: 346px;" /></p> <p>  </p> <p> Despite the volumes of studies on juror attitudes, none have conclusively found any evidence that women are less capable then men of weighing the evidence, testimony, and arguments of prosecutors and defense attorneys and arriving at an objective decision in a case based on the quality of the evidence for and against a defendant. There is no real evidence that majority female juries have a higher acquittal rate of defendants than majority male jurors.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Zimmerman’s fate, as Simpson’s and countless other defendants that majority women juries have decided, will be determined as always on how vigorous, professional, and pointed the prosecution presents its case against him. And how well prosecutors parry the ploy of defense attorneys to relentlessly try to paint Zimmerman as a victim of Martin while further impugning Martin’s character. If it does its job, Zimmerman will fare no better or worse than he would if he faced an all or majority male jury.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> <em>Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new ebook is America on Trial: The Slaying of Trayvon Martin (Amazon). He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KTYM 1460 AM Radio Los Angeles and KPFK-Radio and the Pacifica Network.</em></p> <p>  </p> <p> <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2013/06/concerns-over-all-female-jury-in-zimmerman-case-are-baseless.php">New America Media</a></p> <p>  </p> <p> <em><strong>Photos: Chris Waldeck; David Shankbone (Flickr, Creative Commons).</strong></em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/trayvon-martin" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Trayvon Martin</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/george-zimmerman" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">George Zimmerman</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/zimmerman-trial" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">zimmerman trial</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/stand-your-ground-law" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">stand your ground law</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/court-case" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">court case</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/jury-selection" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">jury selection</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/law-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the law</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Earl Ofari Hutchinson </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Chris Waldeck, Flickr</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Tue, 25 Jun 2013 13:40:18 +0000 tara 3070 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/2550-how-will-all-female-jury-affect-outcome-zimmerman-trial#comments