Opinion ID: 1036248
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Batson in context

Text: Since 1879, the United States Supreme Court has recognized that race discrimination in the selection of jurors violates the Fourteenth Amendment's guaranty of equal protection. See Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. (10 Otto) 303, 309-10, 25 L. Ed. 664 (1879). But to contextualize Batson we must look to its origins. Two decades before Batson, the United States Supreme Court held in Swain v. Alabama that purposeful discrimination in the use of peremptory challenges violates the equal protection clause. 380 U.S. 202, 223-24, 85 S. Ct. 824, 13 L. Ed. 2d 759 (1965), overruled by Batson, 476 U.S. 79. Under Swain, a single act of racism was not sufficient to make out an equal protection claim; a person alleging race discrimination had to prove a long-running pattern of purposefully discriminatory acts. /d. at 221-22. Swain did little to curb racial discrimination, establishing a crippling burden of proof and leaving peremptories largely immune from constitutional scrutiny. 10 No. 86257-5 Batson, 476 U.S. at 92-93. Batson reexamined Swain in light of this reality, rejecting Swain's crippling burden and establishing the now-familiar three-part test for scrutinizing peremptories. /d. at 92-93, 97-98. Twenty-six years later it is evident that Batson, like Swain before it, is failing us. Mil/er-E/, 545 U.S. at 270 (Breyer, J., concurring) ([T]he use of race- and gender-based stereotypes in the jury-selection process seems better organized and more systematized than ever before.). A growing body of evidence shows that Batson has done very little to make juries more diverse or prevent prosecutors from exercising race-based challenges. Justice Breyer explains, concurring in Mil/er-E/ and citing a laundry list of sources concluding the same thing: Given the inevitably clumsy fit between any objectively measurable standard and the subjective decisionmaking at issue, I am not surprised to find studies and anecdotal reports suggesting that, despite Batson, the discriminatory use of peremptory challenges remains a problem. See, e.g., [David C.] Baldus, [George] Woodworth, [David] Zuckerman, [Neil Alan] Weiner, & [Barbara] Broffitt, The Use of Peremptory Challenges in Capital Murder Trials: A Legal and Empirical Analysis, 3 U. PA. J. CONST. L. 3, 52-53, 73, n. 197 (2001) (in 317 capital trials in Philadelphia between 1981 and 1997, prosecutors struck 51% of black jurors and 26% of non black jurors; defense counsel struck 26% of black jurors and 54% of nonblack jurors; and race-based uses of prosecutorial peremptories declined by only 2% after Batson); [Mary R.] Rose, The Peremptory Challenge Accused of Race or Gender Discrimination? Some Data from One County, 23 LAW AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR 695, 698-699 (1999) (in one North Carolina county, 71% of excused black jurors were removed by the prosecution; 81% of excused white jurors were removed by the defense); [Neely] Tucker, In Moore's Trials, Excluded Jurors Fit Racial Pattern, WASHINGTON POST, Apr. 2, 2001, p. A1 (in D.C. murder case spanning four trials, prosecutors excused 41 blacks or other minorities and 6 whites; defense counsel struck 29 whites and 13 black venire members); [George E.] Mize, A Legal Discrimination; Juries Aren't Supposed to be Picked on the Basis of Race and Sex, But It Happens All the Time, WASHINGTON POST, Oct. 8, 2000, p. 88 (authored by judge 11 No. 86257-5 on the D.C. Superior Court); see also [Kenneth J.] Melilli, Batson in Practice: What We Have Learned About Batson and Peremptory Challenges, 71 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 447, 462-464 (1996) (finding Batson challenges' success rates lower where peremptories were used to strike black, rather than white, potential jurors); [Jeffrey S.] Brand, The Supreme Court, Equal Protection and Jury Selection: Denying That Race Still Matters, 1994 W1s. L. REV. 511, 583-589 (examining judicial decisions and concluding that few Batson challenges succeed); [Eric N. Einhorn] Note, Batson v. Kentucky and J.E.B. v. Alabama ex ref. T B.: Is the Peremptory Challenge Still Preeminent? 36 BoSTON COLLEGE L. REV. 161, 189, and n. 303 (1994) (same); [Jean] Montoya, The Future of the Post-Batson Peremptory Challenge: Voir Dire by Questionnaire and the 11Biind Peremptory, 29 U. MICH. J.L. REFORM 981, 1006, nn. 126-127, 1035 (1996) (reporting attorneys' views on the difficulty of proving Batson claims). 545 U.S. at 268-69. A recent report by the Equal Justice Initiative reaches the same dire conclusion: peremptory challenges have become a cloak for race discrimination. EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE, ILLEGAL RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN JURY SELECTION: A CONTINUING LEGACY (hereinafter EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE REPORT) (Aug. 201 0), available at http://eji.org/eji/files/EJI%20Race%20and%20Jury% 20Report. pdf. It would be na'fve to assume Washington is somehow immune from this nationwide problem. Our Race and Equal Justice Task Force concluded that [t]he fact of racial and ethnic disproportionality in [Washington's] criminal justice system is indisputable. TASK FORCE ON RACE AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM, PRELIMINARY REPORT ON RACE AND WASHINGTON'S CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM (hereinafter TASK FORCE REPORT) at 1 (2011), available at http://www.law.washington.edu/About/RaceTaskForce/preliminary