Opinion ID: 1487682
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Ending Peremptory Strikes

Text: Yet the Court's opinion does not go far enough to ensure every American citizen the opportunity to sit on a jury. If the composition of a jury is a matter of pure chance, neither litigants nor jurors can complain that the system has treated them unfairly. [16] But peremptory strikes allow litigants to change the complexion of a jury, which is why they provoke charges and suspicions of discrimination. The only way to reduce or eliminate discrimination and suspicion is to reduce or eliminate these strikes. Texas allows more peremptory strikes than most of our sister states. [17] Twenty years after Batson, it is now clear we cannot always detect how many of those strikes are racially motivated, no matter how hard we try. Nor can we guarantee equal protection if we focus only on cases like this one where too many minority jurors were struck. [18] In the meantime, we are doing neither the jury system nor racial harmony any favors by encouraging lawyers to accuse each other of racial motives so they can get a second trial if they lose the first one. Haphazard success in removing race from jury selection might be the best we could expect if peremptory strikes were absolutely necessary for a fair and impartial jury. But they are not. Peremptory strikes were an important part of older jury systems in which panels were not randomly selected. Each side in ancient Rome could strike 50 jurors because each side got to propose 100 jurors for the panel. [19] Parties needed peremptory strikes in early Texas because potential jurors were hand-picked by the local sheriff, [20] and later by jury commissioners, [21] and tended to reflect a limited part of the community. [22] But today jury venires are randomly selected, [23] and anyone who is related to, interested in, or biased against a party or case is disqualified. [24] It is hard to see why litigants need to remove half of the unbiased jurors to get an impartial juryespecially when peremptories are based mostly on instinct, intuition, and inference. [25] This is especially true in civil cases, as a fractious juror or two cannot keep the rest from rendering a verdict. [26] There is no constitutional right to peremptory strikes. [27] Indeed, recent cases suggest the opposite may be true, as several justices have already concluded. [28] The Equal Protection Clause protects citizens from arbitrary and capricious state action. [29] In 1991 peremptory challenges were declared to be state action; [30] they have always been recognized as arbitrary and capricious by their very nature. [31] As Justice Scalia has written, [t]o affirm that the Equal Protection Clause applies to strikes of individual jurors is effectively to abolish the peremptory challenge. [32] A majority of this Court could curb peremptory strikes today, as they stem entirely from our Rules of Civil Procedure. [33] The reason we hesitate to do so is that lawyers are tenaciously protective of them, believing they can use these strikes to mold a favorable jury. [34] Study after study has shown this belief to be unfounded. [35] But even if it were true, that reason is not enough: Peremptory strikes are not intended... to permit a party to `select' a favorable jury. [36] All these problemsdiscriminating against minorities, disrupting trial, and discarding perfectly good jurorsare particularly acute in Texas. Whether because of the state's diversity, the generous allowance of peremptory strikes, or something else, Batson challenges are far more frequent here than anywhere else. A recent Westlaw search for state court cases citing to Batson yields:  4 cases from Idaho,  17 from Alaska,  43 from Colorado,  58 from Oklahoma.  74 from Minnesota,  90 from Florida,  181 from Pennsylvania,  342 from Illinois,  676 from California, and  1,364 cases from Texas. More than any other state, we in Texas must consider whether peremptory strikes are worth the price they impose.