Source: http://uscivilliberties.org/historical-overview/4013-jury-trials-and-race.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 18:43:28+00:00

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Jury trial was an early development of the English common law. Under the Magna Carta, which was implemented in 1215, no freeman could be detained and incarcerated unless he had been judged by his peers. As such, to decide, on reasonable grounds, who was deemed as suitable to be tried, a group of freemen from the area where the crime was committed would be brought together to examine the facts of the case and establish whether the charges had any merits. Hence, the grand jury was created as a check against arbitrary prosecution by a judge who might be co-opted by the power elite. The notion of the grand jury was transported by the early settlers of the American colonies. Later on, with the ratification of Bill of Rights in 1791, the first ten amendments to the American Constitution, the Fifth and Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantee the right to a jury trial for all defendants accused of serious crimes. However, it is important to examine jury trials and race.
The exclusion of blacks from jury trials made it impossible to achieve justice in the courts, especially southern courts. Nevertheless, the courts did not see it as necessary or desirable to abandon the jury trials. Eventually, there were some attempts by the government to eliminate the many barriers that prevented blacks’ participation in the legal system and the rights of blacks to serve as jurors. However, the justice system continued to overlook peremptory challenges and for many years; there were two competing views among the Supreme Court Justices on whether a juror’s race might sway his or her view of a case. It was not until 1986, in the landmark case of Batson v. Kentucky, that the Court claimed that the equal protection clause prohibits a prosecutor in criminal cases from using his peremptory strikes against a potential juror on the basis of race. Since this decision by the court, many defendants have raised the issue of race discrimination in the use of peremptory challenges. The Court extended Batson v. Kentucky to a variety of related cases.
In the same year, in the case of Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co, the Court held that a private party in a civil action might raise peremptory challenges on the basis of race by defendants’ attorneys in criminal cases. As such, in Edmonson v. Leesville, Justice Kennedy concluded that our ‘‘progress as a multiracial democracy’’ authorizes that public prosecutor ‘‘satisfy themselves of a jury’s impartiality without using skin color as a test.’’ Although Kennedy’s position, during this period, coincided with the majority of the Justices’ views, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor took the opposite view. She contended that race should never be relevant in jury trials, but we cannot delude ourselves ‘‘of the painful social reality that, sometimes, it may be.’’ In the 1992 Georgia v. McCallum decision, the Court prohibited the exercise of peremptory challenges on the basis of race by defense attorneys in criminal cases.
In the end, concerns about jury trails and race remain a huge element of America’s justice system. Many minorities are angered because of white juries’ verdicts in the acquittal of white defendants of crimes against racial minorities. The Rodney King’s trial is a case in point. SHERROW O. PINDER References and Further Reading Foner, Eric. Reconstruction America’s Unfinished Revolution 1863–1877. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1988.
Haden, George, Joseph Senna, and Larry Siegel., Prosecutorial Discretion in Peremptory Challenges: An Empirical Investigation of Information Use in the Massachusetts Jury Selection, New England Law Review 13 (1978):768.
In the same year, in the case of Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co, the Court held that a private party in a civil action might raise peremptory challenges on the basis of race by defendants’ attorneys in criminal cases. As such, in Edmonson v. Leesville, Justice Kennedy concluded that our ‘‘progress as a multiracial democracy’’ authorizes that public prosecutor ‘‘satisfy themselves of a jury’s impartiality without using skin color as a test.’’ Although Kennedy’s position, during this period, coincided with the majority of the Justices’ views, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor took the opposite view. She contended that race should never be relevant in jury trials, but we cannot delude ourselves ‘‘of the painful social reality that, sometimes, it may be.’’ In the 1992 Georgia v. McCallum decision, the Court prohibited the exercise of peremptory challenges on the basis of race by defense attorneys in criminal cases. In the end, concerns about jury trails and race remain a huge element of America’s justice system. Many minorities are angered because of white juries’ verdicts in the acquittal of white defendants of crimes against racial minorities. The Rodney King’s trial is a case in point.
Foner, Eric. Reconstruction America’s Unfinished Revolution 1863–1877. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1988.
Investigation of Information Use in the Massachusetts Jury Selection, New England Law Review 13 (1978):768.
Siegel, Larry, and Joseph Senna. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, a Division of Thomas Learning, 2004.

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