Expert: Michael Troy - 11/29/2008

Question
Hi...

I need help with some questions and I pray that you can help me.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly asserted that a defendant is not entitled to a jury "composed in whole or in part of persons of his own race." Although these rulings establish that states are not obligated to use racially mixed juries, they do no prohibit states from doing so. In fact, a number of policymakers and legal scholars have proposed reforms that use racial criteria to promote racial diversity on American juries. Some have suggested that the names of majority race jurors be removed from the jury list (thus ensuring a larger proportion of racial minorities); others have suggested that a certain number of seats on each jury be set aside for racial minorities. How would you justify these reforms to a state legislature? How would an opponent of these reforms respond? Overall, are these good ideas or bad ideas?

This is due tomorrow Sunday, do you think you can help me?

Thank you very much!

Answer
Hi Bridgett,

The Supreme Court has held that courts are not permitted to discriminate based on race when picking juries.  Although the courts were focused on preventing discrimination that kept minorities off of juries, the same principle of nondiscrimination would also prohibit using race con force mixed juries.  

The danger of considering race in picking juries is that it quite easily leads to manipulation.  Racial profiling skews outcomes of trials and results can be seen by the public as unjust.

I would not justify use of racial quotas or using race to manipulate jury lists.  But if one supported such goals, the most likely argument would be that minorities allegedly have a better understanding of the situation of certain defendants, or will help to provide more of a diversity of perspective.

I hope this helps!
- Mike