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Recent Ninth Circuit Decision Makes Jury Selection More Even-Handed

By Walin & Klarich

A recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision dealt a blow to racially motivated juror dismissals. When choosing a jury, attorneys are allowed a certain number of challenges to remove jurors form the jury pool. The attorneys may challenge ?for cause? or may exercise a limited number or peremptory challenges. The ?for cause? challenges must be clearly stated and relate to a juror bias that would affect the impartiality of the decision. Peremptory challenges do not require an explanation, but cannot be related to race, gender, or sex. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals just made the peremptory challenge harder by ruling that the appeals court can conduct a comparative juror analysis when determining if the peremptory challenge was made because of race, gender, or sex.continue to full post

Full post as published by Southern California Criminal Defense Blog on January 10, 2010 (boomark / email).