Legal News

Supreme Court Wades Into Peremptory-Strike Debate

By Nathan Koppel

The Supreme yesterday weighed in on the topic of peremptory strikes, the controversial tool that allows lawyers to get rid of jurors without explaining why.

Some lawyers and academics complain that peremptory strikes are often improperly used to strike prospective jurors because of their race or ethnicity, despite the fact that such discrimination is unconstitutional. Some critics have called for getting rid of peremptories, or at least limiting their use. But proponents say peremptory strikes are vital to ensuring that a fair jury is seated. (Here’s an LB post on the debate.)

The Supreme Court's ruling yesterday may please critics of peremptory strikes. Rivera v. Illinois involved a murder trial in which a Chicago judge denied a peremptory strike, determining the defendant lawyer had tried to strike a juror because she was a black woman. The trial judge seated the juror who ended up serving as the foreperson of the jury, which convicted the defendant of first-degree murder.

An appeals court, however, concluded that the defense lawyer offered a defensible reason for striking the juror: She worked for a hospital that treated gunshot victims and thus might lack sympathy for the defendant. That said, the defense lawyer conceded there was no grounds to challenge the juror for cause.

The question for the Supreme Court: Does a trial court's error in refusing to grant a peremptory strike require an automatic reversal of a conviction? No, the court held, in a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Ginbsurg (pictured). "If a defendant is tried before a qualified jury composed of individuals not challengeable for cause, the loss of a peremptory challenge due to a state court's good-faith error is not a matter of federal constitutional concern," the judge wrote.

Thaddeus Hoffmeister, a Dayton Univ law professor who edits a blog on jury issues, says the Rivera ruling could encourage judges to more aggressively deny peremptory strikes if they feel they are being used for a discriminatory aim. "Because what are the repercussions [for judges] even if they put someone on a jury who shouldn't have been?"

More broadly, the ruling is a blow to peremptory strikes, suggesting they are "not as important as people think they are," Hoffmeister says. The decision " may encourage states to start to get rid of peremptory challenges, because federal law is now saying that even if you deny peremptories you don't [automatically] have to reverse" a verdict.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 01, 2009 (boomark / email).