A Jury of Whose Peers?: Eliminating Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection Procedures

Abstract: The jury system is intended to instill fairness and increase confidence in the American legal system as a whole. Despite this goal, widespread discrimination remains in jury selection procedures. In order to adequately protect both a defendant's right to be tried by a jury of his peers and every citizen's right to participate in the legal system, representativeness should be improved at each of three levels where juror exclusion takes place: (1) the assembly of the jury pool; (2) the issuance of exemptions and excusals from jury service; and (3) the use of peremptory challenges in empanelling the petit jury. States should institute a system like the one used in Massachusetts, which limits service to one day or one trial and eliminates all exemptions from jury service. In addition, the Supreme Court should reevaluate the current unfettered use of peremptory challenges.Introduction It was an unfortunate case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time for the "Scottsboro Boys" on a chilly Spring morning in 1931.1 Nine young African American boys were "hoboing" their way across rural Alabama on a freight train when a group of boys confronted them exclaiming "[t]his is a white man's train. All you Nigger bastards unload."2 The ensuing brawl between the two groups was reported to the local Sheriff, who ordered the immediate deputization of all available gun-owning men to "capture every negro on the train and bring them to Scottsboro."3 When the train stopped at Paint Rock station later that afternoon, a posse of armed men rushed onboard and captured the young Scottsboro Boys within minutes.4 What the posse did not expect to find, however, were two young white girls who had also been free riding on the open carts of the freight train.5Not until twenty minutes later, when the girls were being taken into custody for their free riding and were directly asked whether they were bothered by the Scottsboro Boys, did Ruby Bates claim that she and her friend, Victoria Price, had been raped.6 The girls claimed that they were held down at knifepoint while the nine Scottsboro Boys took turns raping them.7 All nine of the boys were immediately taken to Scottsboro where an angry mob was eagerly awaiting their arrival, already convinced of the boys' guilt.8 Six days later the boys were arraigned for the alleged rapes, and each of them plead not guilty.9 The boys were never given an opportunity to communicate with their families or obtain competent legal counsel of their own choice.10In the span of four days, the boys were tried in four separate cases.11 By April 9, 1931, just two weeks after that fateful train ride across rural Alabama, eight of the nine Scottsboro Boys were sentenced to death by all-white juries.12 The ninth boy, thirteen year-old Roy Wright, narrowly escaped the death penalty when the jury could not agree whether to impose death or life imprisonment, resulting in a hung jury.13 The nine young boys, many of whom met for the first time on the train, would spend the rest of their lives fighting for their freedom.14In the days after the pronouncement of the Scottsboro Boys' death sentences, word of the "legal lynching" suffered by these boys spread across the country.15 Despite the resulting public outcry for justice, on March 24, 1932, just one day shy of the one year mark of the train ride that forever changed their lives, the Supreme Court of Alabama affirmed the convictions of all but one of the Scottsboro Boys.16 Only Eugene Williams was granted a new trial because he was thirteen years old and thus subject to the juvenile court's jurisdiction.17Continuing their fight for freedom, the Scottsboro Boys appealed once again, this time to the United States Supreme Court.18 On November 7, 1932, the Court overturned the boys' convictions in a seven-to-two decision, finding that the boys were denied due process under the Fourteenth Amendment because they were not adequately represented at trial. …