Three Reasons Why Minorities Shouldn’t Avoid Jury Duty

I cannot stress this enough: If you are called to jury duty DO NOT TRY TO AVOID IT!! I know you’re probably thinking you have better things to do. In reality, as a citizen of the United States, few responsibilities are more important than serving on a jury, especially if you are a minority. And I am not being hyperbolic. The jury process is where ordinary citizens are invited to participate in the handing out of justice.  What could be more important than ensuring the creation of justice in society?

Unfortunately, such a grave responsibility is too frequently removed from the hands of minorities. Racial discrimination [1] in the selection of juries remain a persistent problem that undermines our justice system. This has certainly been the case in my personal experience practicing law.  In every trial where my client is black, whether a plaintiff in an employment discrimination case or a defendant in a criminal case, the opposing counsel has used its preemptory challenges to strike minorities from the jury. Stop; re-read that sentence and let it sink in. Yes, that’s right, 100% of the time when I have a black client the opposing counsel has struck minority jurors.

To provide a little educational background, let me explain the jury selection process (at least in the state of Florida). A jury is chosen from the venire panel. The venire panel consists of a certain number of potential jurors. The number of venire panel members depends on the type of case. Each side has a chance to question the members of the venire panel in a process known as voir dire (from the French, roughly translated to “speak the truth”). After voir dire, the judge goes down the line of potential jurors based on seating order and asks each side if a particular juror is acceptable or not. The judge will do so until both sides reach the first 6 or 12 jurors who they both can agree on.  Again, the number depends on the particular case. During this part of the process each side can exercise a preemptory challenge, they have three or six total, which allows them to strike a potential juror for any reason or no reason at all; it just cannot be for a discriminatory reason.

The preemptory strikes are what lawyers use to remove minorities from juries.   Whenever this has happened to me, I always ask for a racially neutral reason[2] for striking the potential juror.  The explanations opposing counsel provide are often specious at best, and sometimes  downright absurd.  For instance a prosecutor once struck a black juror because he had on a Bob Marley shirt, while another attorney tried to strike a black juror because he was retired from Duke Energy. If blatant attempts like these to disenfranchise minorities isn’t enough to compel you to serve on a jury, here are three more reasons.

1. Blood, Sweat and Tears Went Into Allowing You To Serve on a Jury

This should go without saying, but I want to emphasize it here. People endured great injustices fighting for minorities to serve on juries. For instance, in the U.S. Supreme court cases Patterson v. Alabama, 294 U.S. 600 (1935) and Norris v. Alabama, 294 U.S. 587 (1935), civil rights advocates successfully fought to have the convictions of the famous Scottsboro Boys [3] overturned. These cases, which also inspired the classic novel To Kill A Mocking Bird, involved nine black men who were falsely accused of raping two white women in 1931. Not surprisingly, they were convicted by an all white male jury.  While this case was riddled with many injustices, one particular point was the jury selection process. Despite Alabama’s law on jury selection that appeared racially neutral on its face, no black person had served on a jury.  According to a witness for the state of Alabama, the reason for the exclusion of blacks was because:

I do not know of any negro…who is generally reputed to be honest and intelligent and who is esteemed in the community for his integrity, good character and sound judgment, who is not an habitual drunkard, who isn’t afflicted with a permanent disease or physical weakness which would render him unfit to discharge the duties of a juror, and who can read English, and who has never been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. Norris 294 U.S. at 598-99.

Thankfully the Supreme Court rejection this contention and held that the exclusion of blacks was a denial of the defendants’ constitutional rights. Had the court not intervened, Alabama’s systematic exclusion of blacks would have cost these innocent men their lives.

Therefore, we must not now do what purveyors of racial injustice have been seeking to do historically and presently, which is to exclude minorities from juries. Don’t become a willing participant in the perpetuation of your own injustice.  Don’t actively work to deny defendants their constitutional right to a jury of their peers. Our voices clearly matter; if that were not so, then there wouldn’t be an effort to exclude it. USE IT!

2. If You Refuse To Serve On A Jury Then You Can’t Complain About The Justice System

Closely connected to the above point is the reality that if you choose to opt out of jury duty, then you have chosen to opt out of any critique of the justice system. You cannot complain about how the system is broken, but when you are given the chance to participate you readily relinquish your right. As I stated above, your voice matters and has power. If we all chose to exercise that power when called upon, we would impact the justice system. This is precisely why others seek to remove us from juries. To be sure, serving on a jury alone will not cure systemic injustice, but it is a necessary component of the antidote. More importantly, shirking this duty will only further entrench the injustice present in our system.  Again, don’t become a facilitator of your own injustice.

3. It Is An Opportunity to Learn 

Finally, if activism does not compel you to act, nor does a sense of obligation move you, then perhaps education can inspire you. Serving on a jury, or even just making it to a venire panel, is an unique educational experience.  Even as a lawyer, I found jury duty to be an enlightening process different from any classroom I’ve ever sat in. Television and film often distort what is involved in court, but serving as a juror actually teaches you about our court system and how justice is meted out in this country.  Additionally, depending on the case, you may learn an interesting area of law, like Intellectual Property, or learn of a cutting edge science or technology. Who knows, you may even be able to write a book about it.

Whatever your reason, I hope you will choose to serve on a jury when called upon. Not only is it your civic duty, it is also your repayment to those who fought for justice before you, and an investment to those who will come after you.

–Until Next Time–

Palooke

[1] http://www.eji.org/raceandpoverty/juryselection

[2] The language “race neutral reason” comes from the U.S. Supreme Court case Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986). There the prosecutor struck all four black people from jury panel and the court found this to be a constitutional violation. For more info read here http://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/facts-and-case-summary-batson-v-kentucky

[3] For a GREAT film on this case watch Scottsboro: An American Tragedy produced by PBS.