Racism, Peremptory Challenges, and the Democratic Jury: The Jurisprudence of a Delicate Balance

Abstract

The institution of the jury may be aristocratic or democratic, according to the class from which the jurors are taken; but it always preserves its republican character, in that it places the real direction of society in the hands of the governed, or of a portion of the governed, and not in that of government .... The true sanction of political laws is to be found in penal legislation. He who punishes the criminal is therefore the real master of society. Now, the institution of the jury raises the people itself, or at least a class of citizens, to the bench ofjudges... [and] consequently invests the people, or that class of citizens, with the direction of society.... In the United States the [jury] system is applied to the whole people. [It applies to] every American citizen [who is] both an eligible and legally qualified voter. The jury system as it is understood in America appears to me to be as direct and as extreme a consequence of the sovereignty of the people as universal suffrage. They are two instruments of equal power .... I

The effect of race on prospective jurors’ trust in courtroom participants: A research note

“…Evidence of racial effect on juries has not gone unnoticed in legal circles, however (see for instance, Serv and Maney, 1988). In 1986, responding to years of prosecutors and defense attorneys eliminating prospective jurors because of presumed racial biases, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Batson v. Kentucky that the peremptory challenges by a prosecutor in a criminal trial are governed by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.…”