Patters

Shocking evidence of racism in the red states.

Study: Blacks Stricken From Juries in Southern States - AOL News

Black Americans are being stricken from Southern juries -- especially in cases of capital punishment -- because they live in poor neighborhoods, chew gum or are thought to have "low intelligence," according to a new report.

The two-year study published today by the nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative found "shocking evidence of racial discrimination" in jury pool selection across eight Southern states.

...

For example, Alabama's Houston County is 27 percent black, but from 2005 to 2009 local prosecutors struck 80 percent of blacks qualified to serve on juries in capital punishment cases, leaving half of the juries all white and the rest with only one black member. The Houston County District Attorney's Office did not return calls for comment today.

Stokes

Ever read "A Time to Kill" Patters? This reminds me of that book.

Nikolai

I would be interested in knowing how the stats pan out in other states. They only studied a handful of southern states, so the study and its conclusions are incomplete. Even here in CT, racism is a pretty sizable part of the culture, especially if directed against Hispanics.

__________________
We get what we deserve.

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Wolfpack

+1. There's no control group so to draw any conclusions is based on a fallacy.

I would bet most prosecutors across the nation try to strike black jurors from a case involving an accused black man (though they could never actually admit it). But hey, it's a story about how racist people are so who cares how flawed it is? It has to be publicized!

chicowalker

Not only does this offer no statistical analysis, it also fails to consider possibilities other than racism. It may be wrong to strike blacks because they're black, but it isn't necessarily racist.

PatsFanInVa

Wait, yes it is.

It may not be racist to strike an individual black juror because he's poor, or because you claim he's "too dumb" to be a juror, setting the stage for an encoded form of racism... but so far at least, you can still do that.

What you can't do is strike a black juror for being black.

That's cuz it's racist.

I'm thinking you mis-typed on this one.

PFnV

Harry Boy

If I were a Black man on trial for murdering a White Woman I would love to have an all Black Jury.

If I were a White Man on trial for murdering a Black Women I would love to have an sll White Jury.

Thats America like it or not.

__________________
Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself

chicowalker

If I'm a defense attorney and my desired profile for a juror is a white soccer mom, I may try to get a black male potential juror out of the jury. That doesn't imply any judgment on the potential juror's race (or gender).

TBradyOwnsYou

I think that's kind of the definition actually...

chicowalker

The definition of racism, yes.

But thinking that a certain profile of person is more likely to favor your client in a certain case doesn't mean that you think all people who don't fit that profile are inferior.

This is like saying that companies who target various demographics are racist, sexist, agist, etc.

What they're doing certainly may be viewed as wrong, and a subversion of the justice system, but that's not the same as beign racist.