please read last paragraph
To any one reading this: Please read my last paragraph.
Today I am going to talk about one of the most blatantly institutionalized racist practices in America: the jury selection process.
Ok, so that's probably not what you expected I'd say.
I mean, first of all, jury selection really isn't one of those glamorous topics that headlines the news and sends all of social media into an activist frenzy. And second of all, on the surface, isn't the jury selection process already fair? We all learn in history class that a jury has to be fair - the 6th amendment of the Constitution states that we all have the right to an "impartial jury of our peers." Sounds simple enough. So what's the problem (if there even is one)?
Well, there is a problem. a HUGE one might I add. The problem is that the jury selection process is still set up to discriminate against minorities (yes, even in our day and age!)
Let me break this down.
Before a jury is finalized for a case, the jury must go through a selection or vetting process to make sure there's no bias that will result in an unfair verdict. The first part of this process is called "Voir Dire" (Fancy latin word I know). Under Voir Dire, both the defense and prosecuting attorney get to question individual members of the jury to see if they are biased, if bias is found, the lawyers can dismiss a juror with cause for bias. (Ex.: if it's a drunk driving case, and one juror had a child that was killed by a drunk driver, the defense attorney can dismiss the juror since they would be biased against the defendant.) Sounds good so far, right? Not so fast.
Now we get to the second step of jury selection: peremptory strikes (another fancy word). Under peremptory challenges, each lawyer can dismiss a certain number of jurors WITHOUT CAUSE. Yes, you heard that right. That means that if a lawyer just feels like it, they can dismiss a certain juror for bias without an actual reason. Because of this, peremptory challenges have often been used to discriminate against people of color and minorities. In fact, there is even a jury selection training video on how to exclude black jurors (YES THIS EXISTS AND IT'S HORRIBLE). In some cases, prosecutors have dismissed all or almost all potential black jurors so that the final jury has 0 or only 1 black juror.
And if you're reading this thinking, shouldn't this be illegal? well, you're absolutely right. Technically, using peremptory strikes to discriminate is illegal. However, in practice, if a lawyer is accused of using peremptory strikes to discriminate, all they have to do is offer a reason, (literally any other reason that is race-neutral), as to why they want to dismiss the juror, and the juror will be dismissed. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, African Americans have been dismissed because of arbitrary reasons for wearing glasses, being single, being married, being too old at 43 years old, and being too young at 28 years old.
And if this didn't freak you out enough already, I'm just going to list a few more reasons as to why this is horrible.
1. In Houston County (which is 25% African American btw), half of the juries that delivered death sentences were ALL WHITE. And the other half of juries that weren't all white? They only had one black juror.
2. Also in Houston County: 80% of African Americans qualified for jury service have been struck down and dismissed by prosecutors in death penalty cases.
3. Peremptory strikes are used 2.5X more against black jurors than white jurors
4. All white juries are proven to make more errors, be harsher on black defendants, and spend less time discussing the facts
5. Having two black jurors on a jury lowers the percentage of a death penalty by nearly half (compared to having an all white jury).
6. In the case of Emmett Till (remember talking about that in Song of Solomon?), the ALL WHITE jury took only 1 hour and 5 minutes to acquit the murderers of Emmett Till.
Combine this discriminatory system with the fact that African Americans are ALREADY more likely to be arrested and stopped by police without solid evidence, they are set up to fail in a racist system. This is definitely a reason why we see such a high amount of African Americans incarcerated!
Now, don't go losing all faith in humanity just yet. There are many organizations across the United States that are actively fighting to reform the jury selection process (and the whole racially biased justice system as a whole.) I'm going to spotlight one: the Equal Justice Initiative. I cannot say enough good things about this organization. In short, the Equal Justice Initiative fights to end mass incarceration, excessive punishment, and racial bias in the legal system. Through the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), Walter McMillan and Anthony Ray Hinton were able to be freed after an all white jury wrongfully convicted them and sentenced them to the death penalty. Through the EJI, a memorial was set up to pay homage to the victims of lynching. The EJI also has done tremendous work for children's rights in the legal system - in 2006, they successfully challenged the Supreme Court so that children now CANNOT be executed under the death penalty (the fact that children could be sentenced and killed through the death penalty before 2006 still boggles my mind.)
The reason I'm spotlighting the EJI is because I was wondering if we could do a class fundraiser to fight racial inequality (doesn't have to be the EJI that we support). Since we're going to be talking about racial discrimination and inequality in class for the next few weeks, I thought, wouldn't it be cool if while we converse about it, we could also be part of the solution to stop it? I was thinking that perhaps we could choose an organization to support, and if we hit a certain fundraising/donation goal then we could have a class party @Ms.Valentino if it's okay with you. If you guys are interested in this, please let me know down in the comments. I think this would be a pretty cool thing to do (with Ms. Valentino's permission of course).
Thank you for reading!
If you want to learn more about the EJI: https://eji.org/about/
If you want to learn more about jury selection, def watch this video:
Today I am going to talk about one of the most blatantly institutionalized racist practices in America: the jury selection process.
I find it very fitting that I use a Black Jeopardy gif
I mean, first of all, jury selection really isn't one of those glamorous topics that headlines the news and sends all of social media into an activist frenzy. And second of all, on the surface, isn't the jury selection process already fair? We all learn in history class that a jury has to be fair - the 6th amendment of the Constitution states that we all have the right to an "impartial jury of our peers." Sounds simple enough. So what's the problem (if there even is one)?
Well, there is a problem. a HUGE one might I add. The problem is that the jury selection process is still set up to discriminate against minorities (yes, even in our day and age!)
Let me break this down.
my inner elle woods coming out
Before a jury is finalized for a case, the jury must go through a selection or vetting process to make sure there's no bias that will result in an unfair verdict. The first part of this process is called "Voir Dire" (Fancy latin word I know). Under Voir Dire, both the defense and prosecuting attorney get to question individual members of the jury to see if they are biased, if bias is found, the lawyers can dismiss a juror with cause for bias. (Ex.: if it's a drunk driving case, and one juror had a child that was killed by a drunk driver, the defense attorney can dismiss the juror since they would be biased against the defendant.) Sounds good so far, right? Not so fast.
Now we get to the second step of jury selection: peremptory strikes (another fancy word). Under peremptory challenges, each lawyer can dismiss a certain number of jurors WITHOUT CAUSE. Yes, you heard that right. That means that if a lawyer just feels like it, they can dismiss a certain juror for bias without an actual reason. Because of this, peremptory challenges have often been used to discriminate against people of color and minorities. In fact, there is even a jury selection training video on how to exclude black jurors (YES THIS EXISTS AND IT'S HORRIBLE). In some cases, prosecutors have dismissed all or almost all potential black jurors so that the final jury has 0 or only 1 black juror.
And if you're reading this thinking, shouldn't this be illegal? well, you're absolutely right. Technically, using peremptory strikes to discriminate is illegal. However, in practice, if a lawyer is accused of using peremptory strikes to discriminate, all they have to do is offer a reason, (literally any other reason that is race-neutral), as to why they want to dismiss the juror, and the juror will be dismissed. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, African Americans have been dismissed because of arbitrary reasons for wearing glasses, being single, being married, being too old at 43 years old, and being too young at 28 years old.
And if this didn't freak you out enough already, I'm just going to list a few more reasons as to why this is horrible.
1. In Houston County (which is 25% African American btw), half of the juries that delivered death sentences were ALL WHITE. And the other half of juries that weren't all white? They only had one black juror.
2. Also in Houston County: 80% of African Americans qualified for jury service have been struck down and dismissed by prosecutors in death penalty cases.
3. Peremptory strikes are used 2.5X more against black jurors than white jurors
4. All white juries are proven to make more errors, be harsher on black defendants, and spend less time discussing the facts
5. Having two black jurors on a jury lowers the percentage of a death penalty by nearly half (compared to having an all white jury).
6. In the case of Emmett Till (remember talking about that in Song of Solomon?), the ALL WHITE jury took only 1 hour and 5 minutes to acquit the murderers of Emmett Till.
Combine this discriminatory system with the fact that African Americans are ALREADY more likely to be arrested and stopped by police without solid evidence, they are set up to fail in a racist system. This is definitely a reason why we see such a high amount of African Americans incarcerated!
Now, don't go losing all faith in humanity just yet. There are many organizations across the United States that are actively fighting to reform the jury selection process (and the whole racially biased justice system as a whole.) I'm going to spotlight one: the Equal Justice Initiative. I cannot say enough good things about this organization. In short, the Equal Justice Initiative fights to end mass incarceration, excessive punishment, and racial bias in the legal system. Through the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), Walter McMillan and Anthony Ray Hinton were able to be freed after an all white jury wrongfully convicted them and sentenced them to the death penalty. Through the EJI, a memorial was set up to pay homage to the victims of lynching. The EJI also has done tremendous work for children's rights in the legal system - in 2006, they successfully challenged the Supreme Court so that children now CANNOT be executed under the death penalty (the fact that children could be sentenced and killed through the death penalty before 2006 still boggles my mind.)
The reason I'm spotlighting the EJI is because I was wondering if we could do a class fundraiser to fight racial inequality (doesn't have to be the EJI that we support). Since we're going to be talking about racial discrimination and inequality in class for the next few weeks, I thought, wouldn't it be cool if while we converse about it, we could also be part of the solution to stop it? I was thinking that perhaps we could choose an organization to support, and if we hit a certain fundraising/donation goal then we could have a class party @Ms.Valentino if it's okay with you. If you guys are interested in this, please let me know down in the comments. I think this would be a pretty cool thing to do (with Ms. Valentino's permission of course).
Thank you for reading!
If you want to learn more about the EJI: https://eji.org/about/
If you want to learn more about jury selection, def watch this video:
Woah I never realized how juries, which ironically are supposed to be one of the fairest institutions in society, are actually so screwed up like this... of course one then asks "why do peremptory strikes even exist" but then the answer is "because your lawmakers who are mostly the majority don't know or don't care or even know and are fine with it so nothing gets changed".
ReplyDeleteAnd why only have a class fundraiser if we can take it to the school level? There are multiple fundraisers each year so we could apply, if it doesn't get chosen this year there's still next year, this is definitely worth a try.
I really liked how you broke down the procedures used in court in a very simple way for your audience to understand. I also liked how you had a strong argument in how this practice is wrong but showed the solutions for this problem such as the organizations being used to resolve the issue. I also really like your idea of fundraising!
ReplyDeleteAHHHHHH YES we totally have to do this fundraiser idea of yours it sounds amazing!!!!!! thank you so much for highlighting this, it's so so so important.
ReplyDeleteI love this idea!
ReplyDeleteLet's do it (Fundraiser)
ReplyDelete