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Kali L. Eyster

Professor John Visnaw III

Writing 121

15 October 2017

Jury discrimination

The following essay will address the current system in place regarding jury selection in

Wayne County, Michigan and bring forth a personal account related to the jury selection process

as a whole in an effort to shine some light on the often underhanded discriminatory practices still

in play today in the court system, despite the steps that have been taken in order to protect the

right to serve granted to all U.S citizens. This essay will focus primarily on race, gender, and age

as they relate to the concepts and ideas regarding discrimination, personal prejudice, bias, and

stereotyping. Further, said essay will seek further insight into the laws that have been put in

place in order to protect U.S citizens and ascertain whether or not each individual, regardless of

race, gender, and age, have the same opportunities and privileges available to them in relation to

juror selection.

My goal in this paper is to determine what laws have been put in place throughout the

United States and specifically in Wayne County, Michigan in order to protect the right to serve

for U.S Citizens and how these laws might prevent discrimination based on race, gender, and age

in the jury selection process. In order to achieve this goal I have organized my essay into three

sections. The first section relays a personal account regarding the jury selection process in

Wayne County. The following section deal with famous cases throughout the United States of

which deal with race, gender, and age as they relate to discrimination in the court system. The

final section is a summary of the evidence I have found throughout my research as well as a few
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thoughts on my experience in relation to the information I gained and what I was then able to

make of what I experienced.

BACKGROUND

I chose to focus on potential discrimination in the jury selection process as my topic for my

research essay because I was recently selected to serve on a jury for the Honorable Judge Mark

Slavens court. The trial took place in Detroit, Michigan at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice over

a period of four days.

Personal account. It was my first time engaging in the jury selection process, or voir dire, as

is the Latin origin (to speak the truth). During the process I was called, along with twenty or

so other Wayne County residents, to sit before Judge Slavens and hear about the case I would

potentially be working on. The judge, along with both the prosecuting attorney and the defense

attorney, called groups of fourteen to sit in the juror designated area and answer questions

regarding the case. The point of this process was to select jurors who were capable of remaining

fair and impartial throughout the trial, as they would then be expected to deliberate amongst

themselves and reach a consensus regarding the charges placed on the defendant.

The entire process took roughly two hours and I was shocked by both the kind of the questions

that were asked and the level of intensity with which the attorneys, specifically the defense

attorney, spoke. At times it felt less like privilege to be there and more like a punishment, as the

questions became more pointed and I watched on as person after person was dismissed or further

grilled for answering the question to the best of their ability. I believed the line of questioning to

be rather purposeful and aimed towards specific candidates. One individual, a young college

student, was asked about any history of domestic or sexual violence she may have encountered

as it related to the case. She answered that she had in fact been abused in the past and wished not
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to comment. The defense attorney then prodded her for answers, making her recount her past

trauma and then shaming her for her potential inability to remain fair and impartial. He

maintained that she could not possibly sit on the jury as she would be unable to remove herself

from the case and not see herself as the victim. After fifteen or so minutes of questioning I

watched as the judge chimed in in order to stop the line of questioning and the Deputy Sheriff

brought the woman a tissue, as she had began to cry.

Other instances I deemed inappropriate involved the dismissal of two older gentleman and their

history with war, a young black man and his employment history, and a young woman and her

potential inability to make a determination based on less than the facts. Each situation was

similar to the above account in that the attorney went too far with their line of questioning and

entered a realm in which they were asking for personal information that did not pertain to the

case in question. While I recognize that the goal of the jury selection process is to choose a set

of individuals who will be able to judge the trial in a fair and unbiased manner and be able to

reach a verdict regarding the case in question in the name of justice, I feel that both attorneys

took advantage of their authority and are guilty of letting person prejudice and bias get in the

way of making fair and accurate calls involving juror selection. I acknowledge that the attorneys

are allowed a certain degree of leniency in their questioning and are able, under law, to set forth

a peremptory challenge1 or challenge for cause2 regarding a specific candidate in order to

maintain an unbiased jury, however, I feel that in this case both attorneys went far and beyond

the necessary actions to form said jury and instead worked on the side of personal bias in order to

weed out those they felt incapable of performing their duty in relation to race, gender, and age.

1
The right an attorney has to challenge a juror for dismissal without assigning a reason for the potential removal of
a said juror.
2
A challenge an attorney may put forth for dismissal of a juror specifically regarding their ability to remain fair and
impartial throughout the case.
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WAYNE COUNTY

When I began my research I did so with the intention of discovering what laws had been

established in both the United States as a whole and in district in which I served- Wayne County.

While I was able to find a great deal regarding that which had been put into law throughout the

United States as a whole, I find very little concerning Wayne County in particular. The most

information I was able to find was on the official website for the Third Judicial Circuit of

Michigan and even then, it was sparse. One of the main functions of the website, beyond

informing online visitors of the history of the Third Circuit Court, is to provide potential jurors

with information regarding the jury selection process.

COURT CASES

Batson V. Kentucky. Batson V. Kentucky was a landmark case for the supreme court. The trial

took place in the Circuit Court of Jefferson County in Kentucky in the late 1980s. The trial

began in December of 1985 and a verdict was reached a few months later in April of 1986.

Facts of the case: James Batson, a black man, was put on trial and charged with second-degree

burglary and recipient of stolen goods. During his trial the prosecutor, Rickie Leon Pearson,

used peremptory challenges to dismiss all four of the black jurors who were on trial, the result of

which left the defendant with an all white jury. Batson was later found guilty on all charges and

the question as to whether the prosecutors dismissal of every black juror violated the Fourteenth

and Sixteenth amendments.

Verdict. In a 7-2 decision the court found that the prosecutor's actions did indeed violate the

Sixth and Fourteenth amendments of the constitution. The final decision came from Justice

Lewis F. Powell, Jr., who argued that the violation stripped Batson of his rights and undermined

the system as a whole (find quote). The decision in Batson V. Kentucky was affected by a few
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of its precedents, of which dealt with similar matters - Strauder V. West Virginia and Swain V.

Alabama. The decisions made in those cases ultimately lead to the decision in Batsons case.

Strauder V. West Virginia. A case in which a West Virginia law was declared unconstitutional

because it made the right to serve on a jury only available to white males of twenty years of age

or older.

Swain V. Alabama. A case which dealt with peremptory challenges. Said case eventually

proved that an attorney could be guilty of discriminating against black men and women if they

had a track record of striking mostly or all of the potential black jurors.

Looking again at Batson V. Kentucky. Discuss how Batson has changed over the years and how

it now covers both race and gender, as well as the movement to have it also cover sexual

orientation and the concepts surrounding gender. Insert information about those particular cases

(gender and sexual orientation). Discuss the steps one must take under Batson in order to prove

discrimination in a jury and the issues with the reality of the case and its rulings. Undermines

the integrity of the criminal justice system and that Baston stands as ...our tool for addressing

it, has been a weak tool (Stephen B. Bright and Katherine Chamblee 2017). - Litigating Race

Discrimination Under Batson V. Kentucky (article found via EMU database)

Johnson V. California. A case that tested the three step process one must go through in order to

prove racial discrimination/bias in jury selection under Batson V. Kentucky.

Purkett V. Elem. A case that tested the three step process one must go through in order to prove

racial discrimination/bias in jury selection under Batson V. Kentucky.

Batson today. This portion will focus on the Smithkline case and the move to get Batson V.

Kentucky to also cover sexual orientation as a means of potential discrimination.

CONCLUSION
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All of the research I have done for this project has given me a new perspective regarding my

experience as a juror. I still believe the attorneys may have dismissed a few of the juror

candidates based on personal bias/prejudice, but I do not believe they were engaging in any

behavior that was unlawful. Discovering Batson V. Kentucky and learning about its history was

rewarding, as I was able to see a positive trend as it developed over time and worked to include

more people (and that it still is today - sexual orientation/sex and gender). I was disheartened to

learn about the process one must go through in order to prove discrimination in jury selection

and believe there needs to be something done about that (specifically in the South, where it

seemed to be most prevalent given the Souths history/past and present race relations). From this

I now feel more equipped to not only engage in, but to begin conversation about race and gender

and how something like jury duty is so indicative of the society we currently live in and that it is

a system which, as the rest, needs to expand and change over time to match the positive

changes/strides we make as a whole. We still have a long road to total (if that is possible)

inclusiveness but I think this experience/the research I did helped me to both admire what

positive changes we have made and acknowledge the steps we still need to take to make society

at large the best it can be.

Citations

References made/that will be made to/from:

Litigating Race Discrimination Under Batson V. Kentucky (Stephen B. Bright and Katherine

Chamblee, 2017)
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A Jury of whose peers? Eliminating Racial Discrimination in jury selection procedures (Hilary

Weddell, 2013)

Extending Batson to sexual orientation: A look at Smithkline Beecham V. Abbott Labs (K.

Petrovich, 2015)

Oyez.com https://www.oyez.org/cases/1985/84-6263 - Specifically a page about Batson V.

Kentucky but they also have information regarding the other cases I discuss as well

Discrimination out of dismissiveness: the example of infertility (David Orenlitcher, 2010)

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