Using the work of social and cognitive psychologists, I argue that the impact of juror discrimination on jurors. The court applied its prejudice test to defendant's grand jury discrimination claim and affirmed the trial court, finding that the error had no effect on the outcome of the case.
Consequences of Indecision
For example, in two recent decisions on the scope of harmless error review, the Court conspicuously omitted jury discrimination from the list of errors exempt from the harmless error standards.36. The Court's selection of rules for reviewing jury discrimination may remain dependent, at least in part, on empirical claims about the effects of discrimination.
Lessons from Social Science: Studies Examining the Influence of Jury Discrimination on Jury Decisions
Why Juror Race Influences Jury Decisions
The verbal behavior described by the witness in the case above remains part of black culture. Anderson, Deficiencies in the Allocation Process: On the Origins and Maintenance of Flawed Social Assessments, in JUDGMENT.
Studies Examining When Juror Race Makes a Difference These theories explain why juror race may affect jury decisions
In two mock jury studies published the same year, another researcher varied the race of the victim, the defendant, and the juror, as well as the strength of the evidence. Bernard, The Interaction of Race of Defendant and Race of Jurors in Verdict Decisions, 5 LAW & PSYCHOLOGY. The "mean guilt rating" of the black defendant in the strong evidence condition by the white mock jurors was 24.4 compared to 21.7 for the white defendant.
The mean guilt rating of the black defendant in the strong evidence condition was only 19.1, compared to 25.2 for the white defendant. Although the study did not note the race of the jurors, its results suggest that the race of the jurors affects the verdicts. In 1981, 127 high school students served as mock jurors in a study that varied the race and gender of the defense attorney.
What These Studies Mean for the Review of Jury Discrimination Claims
Additionally, confirming that juror race is more likely to affect verdicts in "closed" cases and identifying certain situations in which the effect of juror race on a jury's verdict is particularly likely or unlikely , jury research shows that assigning probabilities of prejudice is possible. Of course, the effect of racial composition error on decisions is complex and difficult to predict. Komfort, Scientific Jury Selection: Sex as a Moderator of Demographic and Personality Predictors of Criminal Deferred Juror Behavior, 43 J.
Cf. Visher, supra note 72, at 180 (both black and white jurors' confidence in the defendant's guilt was highest in juries with eleven or more whites, lower in juries with nine or ten whites, and lower still when only seven or more were white (eight of the jurors were white). Deadlock during deliberation is also a sign of less than overwhelming evidence of guilt, and it may also support a finding of prejudice. See e.g. Patton, supra note 78, at 997 (Batson error not harmless in civil cases when there is evidence that the verdict was not unanimous or the jury deadlocked during deliberations); cf Cornell v.
Helping White Judges Think Like Black Jurors
Report and Recommendation, supra note 139, at 611-12 (agreeing that judicial diversity is essential to continued acceptance of the rule of law, the Florida Legislature passed a law establishing minimum minority representation on judicial nominating committees); Judith Resnick, On the Bias: Feminist Reconsiderations of the Aspirations for Our Judges, 61 S. Nevertheless, judicial evaluations of the effect of juror discrimination are the least, if not the most, likely to be influenced by the unconscious influences of race. The judicial process, due to the absence or presence of the effect of discrimination, provides the parties with an opportunity to present different views to the judge.
Peirce, Legal, Ethical, and Social Implications of the "Reasonable Woman" Standard in Sexual Harassment Cases, 61 Fordham L. Brenneman, Commentary, From a Woman's Point of View: Applying the Reasonable Woman Standard to Sexual Harassment Cases; 60 U. See Robert Unikel, Comment, "Reasonable" Doubts: A Critique of the Reasonable Woman Standard in American Legal Practice, 87 Nw.
EFFECTS
Traversing the Slippery Slope: Recognizing that Race Affects Verdicts While Avoiding the Use of Racial Quotas
After all, the harm suffered by a defendant deprived of a racially heterogeneous jury is the same regardless of the reason for the absence of minority jurors. Admitting that prejudice can result from jury discrimination while refusing to provide proportional racial representation in the jury box or on the bench is obviously costly. It involves acknowledging a deeply unpleasant reality: some defendants may be imprisoned or executed solely because of the race of those who judged them, even if those who judged were legally chosen.
However, adopting a racially autonomous justice system'64 or mandating racial representation on venires, juries, or in court165 also involves costs.166 I will not attempt here to quantify the costs of forgoing either option and instead tolerating the risk that some defendants will be sentenced to prison or death by the legal but skewed racial composition of their juries.167 Whatever. It punishes the government for proven violations of the constitutional rights of those excluded from jury service. This marginal benefit explains the remedial approach, which recognizes that jury discrimination affects jury decisions but denies affirmative rights to racially representative juries and judges.
Assuming Blacks and Whites Would Disagree: Equal Protection, the Inference of Prejudice, and Interest Balancing
- The Conflict
- Why Remedial Tests Measuring the Effects of Proven Jury Discrimination Are Constitutional: The Absence of
- Assuming Strict Scrutiny Applies: Why Some Remedial Tests Measuring the Effects of Jury Discrimination Are
A state supreme court has ruled that it is unconstitutional for judges to use bias tests to review claims of jury discrimination. This suggests that post-conviction attempts to measure the effect of jury discrimination are not per se unconstitutional. Dissenters in Metro contested the Court's willingness to use race as a proxy for belief.
Predictions of juror behavior based on race, implicit in the race-conscious standards for reviewing claims of juror discrimination, may also be found by a court to be "disgraceful." The Court clearly rejected arguments that race-conscious remedial efforts deserve less scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause. In the default context, race-conscious standards measuring the effect of juror race on the outcome of a case become reasonably "necessary" to advance the governmental interests most persuasive to the court, and likely would.
The Future of Prejudice or Harmless Error Review of Jury Discrimination
- AccuRAcy, INNOCENCE, AND RACIAL COMPOSITION
Alternatively, one might argue that the court erred in considering res judicata, comity, the prevention of sandbagging, or the fear of overburdening counsel in crafting a standard of review for post-conviction relief for defendants whose attorneys failed to timely raise a constitutional error.216. Others questioned the court's decision to limit right-to-counsel violations to attorney errors that the defendant can show "prejudiced" the outcome of the case. Of course, the Court may be hesitant to adopt any proposal that would make the standards of review even more complex, particularly the rules governing the review of ineffective relief claims or the protections for late claims.
Although reviewing jury discrimination with harmless error or prejudice tests is at least a potentially sound practice, no similar justification exists for the Court's insistence that judges grant relief for jury discrimination depending on whether the discrimination affected the factual accuracy of the jury's decision. did not affect The predicted effect of the Court's decisions on jury selection practices has yet to attract the kind of attention that commentators have devoted to the relationship between police practices and remedies for violations of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. The court appears content to punish other types of misconduct with sanctions other than reversing convictions or dismissing charges.
WHOSE TRUTH COUNTS?
The Allure of Accuracy
Powell,226 after noting that the exclusionary rule “diverts the process of truth-telling and often sets the guilty free,” the Court effectively eliminated all habeas relief for defendants alleging violations of the Fourth Amendment.227 In Teague v. Lane,228 it decided Court that retroactive relief under a “new” rule of criminal procedure is not available in habeas corpus proceedings unless the petitioner shows that the rule is a “watershed rule.” In addition, the Court awards damages for all defaulted claims depending on the impact of the unaddressed error on the accuracy of the judgment.
A defaulting defendant who cannot demonstrate "causation and prejudice" can obtain habeas relief only by showing that the relief is "necessary to prevent a fundamental miscarriage of justice." The Court has explained that a “fundamental miscarriage of justice” occurs when: If the petitioner raises an error that he claims influenced a jury's decision to sentence him to death, he must show that he is "actually innocent" of the death sentence by providing "clear and convincing evidence that but for constitutional error no reasonable juror could find him eligible for the death penalty" under the law of the jurisdiction. According to Fretwell233, a majority held that any assessment of ineffective applications for assistance that focuses solely on 'merely determining the outcome, without regard to whether the outcome of the procedure was fundamentally unfair or unreliable, is flawed.
Accuracy and Jury Discrimination
In a subsequent federal trial, two of the same defendants were convicted by a jury of two black jurors. Consider the drug charges brought against Marion Barry, former mayor of the District of Columbia. The Court has yet to examine whether juror discrimination can affect the factual accuracy of a particular verdict.238 Instead, just as the Court has had to wade through the unseemly and disjointed process of defining when a defendant is "actually innocent" of for the death penalty .2 39 The Court will have to wrestle with defining when, if ever, discrimination by juries causes the conviction of someone who is actually innocent.
In Teague, the Court held that the Sixth Amendment's rule prohibiting the government from completely challenging black jurors was "far from the kind of absolute prerequisite to fundamental fairness that is" implicit in the concept of warranted liberty. Teague Vs. There is no doubt that this belief has adherents outside the court.242 As an example of this rationale at work in the Court's decisions, consider Justice Scalia's majority opinion in Holland v. Illinois.243 He asserts that race peremptory challenges to prosecutors do not create unfairness, but sometimes enhance impartiality. , Justice Scalia suggested that eliminating black juror bias in the pool may increase accuracy.244 . the defendant's race was systematically excluded.. largely irrelevant");. See also Justice Powell's comment dissenting from the court's decision to overturn the conviction of a black defendant indicted by a grand jury more than 20 years ago, from which blacks were excluded: “But the defendant has no right to a grand jury that errs in his favor.” Vasquez v.
Vol. 92:63
The difficulty with the idea that jury discrimination can actually increase accuracy is obvious. Equating prejudice with impairment of accuracy in judging jury discrimination is similar to Professors John Jeffries, Jr.'s proposal, which would preserve habeas review of a defendant's equal protection racial discrimination claim in the selection of a state grand jury foreman, but it may have left the door open for subsequent decisions denying habeas review for other types of jury discrimination claims, especially Powers claims.
When that happens, a court may not conflate violations of various constitutional guarantees prohibiting jury discrimination with violations of the exclusionary rules discussed in Stone v . First, courts should reconsider their reasons for refusing to review jury discrimination claims with the result: dependent standards. The Court will reduce the scope of habeas review for grand jury discrimination claims.
