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Racial bias in the jury room can violate a defendant’s right to a fair trial (WaPo)

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P

Piecake

Member
Racial comments made during jury deliberations may violate a defendant's right to a fair trail and require review of a resulting guilty verdict, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The court's decision came in the case of Coloradan Miguel Angel Peña Rodriguez, who found out after his conviction that a juror said he felt that Peña Rodriguez was guilty of sexual assault because he was Mexican, and ”Mexican men take whatever they want."

Protecting against bias in the jury room is necessary ”to ensure that our legal system remains capable of coming ever closer to the promise of equal treatment under the law that is so central to a functioning democracy," Kennedy wrote. He was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Peña Rodriguez was challenging federal rules and those employed in Colorado and elsewhere that forbid challenging statements made during jury deliberations.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...d727b644a0b_story.html?utm_term=.3ad26dc5cef7
 
T

TheOfficeMut

Unconfirmed Member
Toki767 said:
Aren't they supposed to figure this all out in the jury selection process?
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They're supposed to but that doesn't mean everyone is forthcoming or honest about their intentions. Maybe a preconceived racist wants to be a juror to sit in on a case and you only find that out after.
 
P

Piecake

Member
Toki767 said:
Aren't they supposed to figure this all out in the jury selection process?
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Its not an extensive interview process. Its like a few questions. I mean, do you think racist people constantly blurt out racist shit constantly and are openly honest about it so you can identify them?

Plus, the jury selection process is pretty fucked.

http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/wnyc/radiolab-presents-more-perfect

That talks about the Batson rule, and how it is routinely avoided just by finding other BS reasons to get the racial makeup that prosecutors want
 
Hari Seldon

Hari Seldon

Member
When I was on a murder trial jury no one said anything racist or anything, but I was a bit surprised how we got selected. All white, one woman's husband was a cop, two engineers, and just generally above average intelligent people. My only theory is that most people try to weasel out of it by saying stupid shit and the attorneys are left with a much smaller pool of people to pick from.
 
H

hydrophilic attack

Member
Hari Seldon said:
When I was on a murder trial jury no one said anything racist or anything, but I was a bit surprised how we got selected. All white, one woman's husband was a cop, two engineers, and just generally above average intelligent people. My only theory is that most people try to weasel out of it by saying stupid shit and the attorneys are left with a much smaller pool of people to pick from.
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no it goes so much deeper than that

there are so many examples of prosecutors/defendant (depending on whether a minority or a cop is on trial) going out of its way to find bullshit reasons to exclude minorities

maybe you are trolling
 
D

dramatis

Member
Protecting against bias in the jury room is necessary “to ensure that our legal system remains capable of coming ever closer to the promise of equal treatment under the law that is so central to a functioning democracy,” Kennedy wrote. He was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
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Wow I would think this ruling is obvious why would the other guys dissent
Breakdown. Alito dissents, joined by Roberts and Thomas. Thomas also dissents.
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Alito's defense:
Juries occupy a unique place in our justice system. The other participants in a trial—the presiding judge, the attorneys, the witnesses—function in an arena governed by strict rules of law. Their every word is recorded and may be closely scrutinized for missteps.

When jurors retire to deliberate, however, they enter a space that is not regulated in the same way. Jurors are ordinary people. They are expected to speak, debate, argue, and make decisions the way ordinary people do in their daily lives. Our Constitution places great value on this way of thinking, speaking, and deciding. The jury trial right protects parties in court cases from being judged by a special class of trained professionals who do not speak the language of ordinary people and may not understand or appreciate the way ordinary people live their lives. To protect that right, the door to the jury room has been locked, and the confidentiality of jury delibera­tions has been closely guarded.
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In his eyes, apparently the right of jury secrecy and the right of people to be 'ordinarily racist' supercedes the right to a fair trial.

At least Thomas was his usual honest "not in the Constitutions or Amendments" stick in the mud.
 
N

Ninja Scooter

Member
This is why all those pro death penalty or people who cite criminal records in cases like Michael Brown or Freddie Gray can go fly a fucking kite.
 
G

Gentleman Jack

Member
Alito wrote that “with the admirable intention of providing justice for one criminal defendant,” the court “rules that respecting the privacy of the jury room, as our legal system has done for centuries, violates the Constitution.”
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So this is how the conservative side of the court sees things.

Constitutionally protected right to privacy: jurors

No constitutionally protected right to privacy: women

okay
 
M

Mammoth Jones

Member
yAl8tlc.gif
 
E

Earthstrike

Member
I wonder if someone let a defendant go because "they don't trust the police" if these conservative justice's opinion would be the same. My guess is probably not.
 
J

jtb

Banned
Hard to see someone who's conscious about their legacy like Kennedy to turn over his seat to a Trump successor. But maybe that's wishful thinking.
 
A

ahoyhoy

Unconfirmed Member
Only read the OP but does the decision mention a potential remedy? How does the court determine if a jury decision was racially motivated after the fact?
 
S

StarCreator

Member
ahoyhoy said:
Only read the OP but does the decision mention a potential remedy? How does the court determine if a jury decision was racially motivated after the fact?
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It doesn't go that far. This case was simply challenging a rule that barred a judge from even conducting a review of the jury selection process after the fact.
 
R

Random Painted HIghway

Member
Good ruling. Absolutely no reason the judge shouldn't be able to ask jurors if things like this occurred during deliberations and make a decision on the issue. In practice, this is rarely going to come up anyway. Void dire isn't going to pick up on silent racists.
 
A

ahoyhoy

Unconfirmed Member
StarCreator said:
It doesn't go that far. This case was simply challenging a rule that barred a judge from even conducting a review of the jury selection process after the fact.
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Based on what? What they said in the interview process that was at the time overlooked, or what they said in the jury room?
 
Hari Seldon

Hari Seldon

Member
hydrophilic attack said:
no it goes so much deeper than that

there are so many examples of prosecutors/defendant (depending on whether a minority or a cop is on trial) going out of its way to find bullshit reasons to exclude minorities

maybe you are trolling
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No I wasn't trolling, I honestly have no idea how the juries are selected. I thought that both attorneys could toss people and I would think at least a cop's wife would be a no brainier to toss out for the defense.
 
G

Goldenroad

Member
To be fair, racial bias does not always work against the defendent.

I know most of you weren't alive for the OJ verdict, but one could argue there may have been more than a little racial bias in that decision.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
Hari Seldon said:
No I wasn't trolling, I honestly have no idea how the juries are selected. I thought that both attorneys could toss people and I would think at least a cop's wife would be a no brainier to toss out for the defense.
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There's a lot of issues with the jury system, and you identified one—the people who should probably be on juries try to get out of it. Lawyer manipulation is the other, especially when it comes to racial makeup of the jury pools. It's hard to suss out who might be racist on the face of it, but it's easy to strike colored people and come up with an excuse to cover the fact that you're afraid they might give the colored person on trial a fair shake.
 
J

Jane Mansfield

Banned
I thought people say stupid things just to get out of jury selection. Some guy at a jury selection I was in actually said he's "BFF's with da cops".
 
D

DarthWoo

I'm glad Grandpa porked a Chinese Muslim
Would it be fair to say that Alito's dissent demonstrates the fickle conservative view on the right of privacy, whereby they generally hate it, but if it somehow gives them a chance to railroad minority defendants, they're all for it? Additionally, doesn't he kind of completely ignore that the explicitly enumerated right to an impartial jury may kind of override what is essentially a rule borne primarily of common law?
 
W

wildfire

Banned
Gentleman Jack said:
So this is how the conservative side of the court sees things.

Constitutionally protected right to privacy: jurors

No constitutionally protected right to privacy: women

okay
Click to expand...

That's not how that sentence works as structured. He's saying the privacy given to jurors violates the constitution.
 
Y

yanipheonu

Member
708040.gif


714096.gif


Yes, they really do have a gif for everything.
Though they may have underestimated how acceptable Homer would be for a jury...
 
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