All-white jury
Encyclopedia
An "all-white jury" is an American
political
term used to describe a jury
in a criminal trial, or grand jury
investigation, composed only of white people
, with the implication that the deliberations may not be fair and unbiased. Racial discrimination in jury selection has a long history in the United States.
, the striking of a juror on account of race denies a defendant equal protection under the constitution. However the court held that a defendant is not entitled to a jury containing or lacking members of any particular race, and the striking of jurors for race-neutral reasons is permissible. This standard has been extended to civil trials in Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Company
and on the basis of gender in J.E.B. v. Alabama ex rel. T.B.
.
, the 13th
, 14th
, and 15th
Amendments to the U.S. Constitution
had abolished slavery
and guaranteed basic civil rights
to African-Americans; the Civil Rights Act of 1875
extended this to "public accommodation" and jury selection, including the establishment of criminal penalties for court officers who interfered:
The United States Supreme Court subsequently ruled inconsistently in two 1880 cases before it. In Strauder v. West Virginia
, the court held that an all-white jury violated the Equal Protection Clause
of the 14th Amendment; yet in Virginia v. Rives, the court denied an appeal on similar grounds, noting that an all-white jury was not in itself proof that a defendant's rights had been violated. Effectively, this nullified Strauder, permitting a segregated legal system where whites could be tried by their peers but blacks could be denied the same privilege.
In 1883, the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was overturned entirely by an 8-1 majority on the Supreme Court. In 1896, the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson
decision enshrined the unofficial civil code termed Jim Crow, ranging from separate but equal
accommodation to voter disenfranchisement and jury exclusion; blacks were thus denied access to the public, political, and judicial spheres.
The 1930s brought the Scottsboro Boys
case, where nine black youths were accused of raping two white women, one of whom later recanted her testimony. Eight of the defendants were sentenced to death
(although none would be executed). Defense attorney Samuel Leibowitz
showed the Alabama Supreme Court
that blacks had been kept off jury rolls, and that names of blacks had been added to the rolls after the trial to conceal this fact. The appeals in the case ultimately led to two landmark Supreme Court decisions. In Powell v. Alabama
, the Court ruled that criminal defendants are entitled to effective counsel, and in Norris v. Alabama, that blacks may not be excluded systematically from jury service.
Despite Norris, the problem of exclusion of blacks from juries did not disappear. In 1985, the Supreme Court in Batson v. Kentucky
addressed a situation where a prosecutor had used his peremptory challenges to strike all four blacks from a jury and obtained a conviction against the black defendant. Defendant was not able to demonstrate that the state's court system systematically excluded blacks from juries but nonetheless raised due process
and equal protection arguments in his particular case. In Batson, the court ruled that the defendant could make a prima facie case for purposeful racial discrimination in jury selection by relying on the record and that a State denies a black defendant equal protection when it puts him on trial before a jury from which members of his race have been purposely excluded.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
political
Politics of the United States
The United States is a federal constitutional republic, in which the President of the United States , Congress, and judiciary share powers reserved to the national government, and the federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments.The executive branch is headed by the President...
term used to describe a jury
Jury
A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...
in a criminal trial, or grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
investigation, composed only of white people
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
, with the implication that the deliberations may not be fair and unbiased. Racial discrimination in jury selection has a long history in the United States.
Current precedent and legal challenges
Under the legal standard set forth by the United States Supreme Court in Batson v. KentuckyBatson v. Kentucky
Batson v. Kentucky, , was a case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that a prosecutor's use of peremptory challenge—the dismissal of jurors without stating a valid cause for doing so—may not be used to exclude jurors based solely on their race...
, the striking of a juror on account of race denies a defendant equal protection under the constitution. However the court held that a defendant is not entitled to a jury containing or lacking members of any particular race, and the striking of jurors for race-neutral reasons is permissible. This standard has been extended to civil trials in Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Company
Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Company
Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Company, 500 U.S. 614 , was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that peremptory challenges may not be used to exclude jurors on the basis of race in civil trials. Edmonson extended the court's similar decision in Batson v. Kentucky, a criminal...
and on the basis of gender in J.E.B. v. Alabama ex rel. T.B.
J.E.B. v. Alabama ex rel. T.B.
J. E. B. v. Alabama ex rel. T. B., 511 U.S. 127 , was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that making peremptory challenges based solely on a prospective juror's sex is unconstitutional. J.E.B. extended the court's existing precedent in Batson v...
.
History
Following the Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, the 13th
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. It was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, passed by the House on January 31, 1865, and adopted on December 6, 1865. On...
, 14th
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
, and 15th
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude"...
Amendments to the U.S. Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
had abolished slavery
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
and guaranteed basic civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
to African-Americans; the Civil Rights Act of 1875
Civil Rights Act of 1875
The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was a United States federal law proposed by Senator Charles Sumner and Representative Benjamin F. Butler in 1870...
extended this to "public accommodation" and jury selection, including the establishment of criminal penalties for court officers who interfered:
- Sec 4. That no citizen possessing all other qualification which are or may be prescribed by law shall be disqualified for service as grand or petit juror in any court of the United States, or of any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; and any officer or other person charged with any duty in the selection or summoning of jurors who shall exclude or fail to summon any citizen for the cause aforesaid shall, on conviction thereof, be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and be fined not more than five thousand dollars.
The United States Supreme Court subsequently ruled inconsistently in two 1880 cases before it. In Strauder v. West Virginia
Strauder v. West Virginia
Strauder v. West Virginia, , was a United States Supreme Court case about racial discrimination.-Background:At the time, West Virginia excluded African-Americans from juries. Strauder was a Black man who, at trial, had been convicted of murder by an all-white jury...
, the court held that an all-white jury violated the Equal Protection Clause
Equal Protection Clause
The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"...
of the 14th Amendment; yet in Virginia v. Rives, the court denied an appeal on similar grounds, noting that an all-white jury was not in itself proof that a defendant's rights had been violated. Effectively, this nullified Strauder, permitting a segregated legal system where whites could be tried by their peers but blacks could be denied the same privilege.
In 1883, the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was overturned entirely by an 8-1 majority on the Supreme Court. In 1896, the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 , is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in the jurisprudence of the United States, upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in private businesses , under the doctrine of "separate but equal".The decision was handed...
decision enshrined the unofficial civil code termed Jim Crow, ranging from separate but equal
Separate but equal
Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law that justified systems of segregation. Under this doctrine, services, facilities and public accommodations were allowed to be separated by race, on the condition that the quality of each group's public facilities was to...
accommodation to voter disenfranchisement and jury exclusion; blacks were thus denied access to the public, political, and judicial spheres.
The 1930s brought the Scottsboro Boys
Scottsboro Boys
The Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenage boys accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial...
case, where nine black youths were accused of raping two white women, one of whom later recanted her testimony. Eight of the defendants were sentenced to death
Death Sentence
Death Sentence is a short story by the American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.-Plot summary:...
(although none would be executed). Defense attorney Samuel Leibowitz
Samuel Leibowitz
Samuel Simon Leibowitz was a Romanian-born American criminal defense attorney, famously noted for winning the vast majority of his cases, who later became a judge in New York City.-Early years:...
showed the Alabama Supreme Court
Alabama Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of Alabama is the highest court in the state of Alabama. The court consists of an elected Chief Justice and eight elected Associate Justices. Each justice is elected in partisan elections for staggered six year terms. The Governor of Alabama may fill vacancies when they occur...
that blacks had been kept off jury rolls, and that names of blacks had been added to the rolls after the trial to conceal this fact. The appeals in the case ultimately led to two landmark Supreme Court decisions. In Powell v. Alabama
Powell v. Alabama
Powell v. Alabama was a United States Supreme Court decision which determined that in a capital trial, the defendant must be given access to counsel upon his or her own request as part of due process.-Background of the case:...
, the Court ruled that criminal defendants are entitled to effective counsel, and in Norris v. Alabama, that blacks may not be excluded systematically from jury service.
Despite Norris, the problem of exclusion of blacks from juries did not disappear. In 1985, the Supreme Court in Batson v. Kentucky
Batson v. Kentucky
Batson v. Kentucky, , was a case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that a prosecutor's use of peremptory challenge—the dismissal of jurors without stating a valid cause for doing so—may not be used to exclude jurors based solely on their race...
addressed a situation where a prosecutor had used his peremptory challenges to strike all four blacks from a jury and obtained a conviction against the black defendant. Defendant was not able to demonstrate that the state's court system systematically excluded blacks from juries but nonetheless raised due process
Due process
Due process is the legal code that the state must venerate all of the legal rights that are owed to a person under the principle. Due process balances the power of the state law of the land and thus protects individual persons from it...
and equal protection arguments in his particular case. In Batson, the court ruled that the defendant could make a prima facie case for purposeful racial discrimination in jury selection by relying on the record and that a State denies a black defendant equal protection when it puts him on trial before a jury from which members of his race have been purposely excluded.
Convictions of minority defendants
- Lynching of Ed JohnsonLynching of Ed JohnsonIn 1906, a young black man named Ed Johnson was murdered by a lynch mob in his home town of Chattanooga, Tennessee. He had been sentenced to death for the rape of Nevada Taylor, but Justice John Marshall Harlan of the United States Supreme Court had issued a stay of execution...
in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1906. Convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to death for raping a white woman, Johnson appealed to the United States Supreme Court challenging the racial composition of his jury. Johnson's execution was stayed by Justice John Marshall HarlanJohn Marshall HarlanJohn Marshall Harlan was a Kentucky lawyer and politician who served as an associate justice on the Supreme Court. He is most notable as the lone dissenter in the Civil Rights Cases , and Plessy v...
but Johnson was then lynched by a mob with the acquiescence of the local sheriff. A note left on his body informed the Court: "Come get your niggerNiggerNigger is a noun in the English language, most notable for its usage in a pejorative context to refer to black people , and also as an informal slang term, among other contexts. It is a common ethnic slur...
now." - Scottsboro BoysScottsboro BoysThe Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenage boys accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial...
, group of African Americans wrongfully convicted for rape of a Caucasian woman and sentenced to death in 1931. - Rubin "Hurricane" Carter in Paterson, New Jersey in 1967 in his first trial, but was retried and reconvicted in 1976 by a jury that included African Americans.
- Mychal Bell, a member of the Jena SixJena SixThe Jena Six were six black teenagers convicted in the beating of Justin Barker, a white student at Jena High School in Jena, Louisiana, on December 4, 2006. Barker was injured in the assault by the members of the Jena Six, and received treatment for his injuries at an emergency room...
, convicted of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated second-degree battery in Jena, LouisianaJena, LouisianaJena is a town in and the parish seat of La Salle Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 2,971 at the 2000 census.In September 2006, Jena became the focus of national news stories in the United States for a racial controversy involving its school system and a group of students known...
in 2007.
Acquittals of white defendants
- The murder of Emmett TillEmmett TillEmmett Louis "Bobo" Till was an African-American boy who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. Till was from Chicago, Illinois visiting his relatives in the Mississippi Delta region when he spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the married...
in Sumner, MississippiSumner, MississippiSumner is a town in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 407 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Sumner is located at ....
in 1955. - Byron De La BeckwithByron De La BeckwithByron De La Beckwith, Jr. was an American white supremacist and Klansman from Greenwood, Mississippi who was convicted in the 1994 state trial of assassinating the civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963....
whose trial for the 1963 murder of Medgar EversMedgar EversMedgar Wiley Evers was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi...
twice ended in a hung jury. At a third trial, over thirty years later and with a jury containing both African Americans and Caucasians, he was found guilty. - The murder of Lemuel PennLemuel PennLt. Col. Lemuel Augustus Penn was a decorated veteran of World War II and a United States Army Reserve officer who was murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan in 1964, nine days after passage of the Civil Rights Act.Of African American descent, Lemuel Penn joined the Army Reserve from Howard...
in 1964. - The murder of Viola LiuzzoViola LiuzzoViola Fauver Gregg Liuzzo was a Unitarian Universalist civil rights activist from Michigan, who was murdered by Ku Klux Klan members after the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches in Alabama...
in 1965. - The defendants in the 1979 Greensboro MassacreGreensboro massacreThe Greensboro massacre occurred on November 3, 1979 in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States. Five protest marchers were shot and killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party...
were acquitted in two trials.
Fiction
- In the novel and film To Kill a MockingbirdTo Kill a MockingbirdTo Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was instantly successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern American literature...
, a black man is accused of rape and tried before an all-white jury; in a central scene, principled defense attorney Atticus FinchAtticus FinchAtticus Finch is a fictional character in Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus is a lawyer and resident of the fictional Maycomb County, Alabama, and the father of Jeremy Atticus "Jem" Finch and Jean Louise "Scout" Finch. Atticus is a central character in the novel...
fails to sway the verdict toward his client, who is later shot trying to escape. Critic Roger EbertRoger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
calls Finch's summation "one of Gregory PeckGregory PeckEldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...
's great scenes". - The blaxploitationBlaxploitationBlaxploitation or blacksploitation is a film genre which emerged in the United States circa 1970. It is considered an ethnic sub-genre of the general category of exploitation films. Blaxploitation films were originally made specifically for an urban black audience, although the genre's audience...
film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song was advertised with a tagline Rated X by an All-White Jury, referring to the MPAAMotion Picture Association of AmericaThe Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
Ratings Board, which had threatened an official X rating if the film was submitted, which director Melvin Van PeeblesMelvin Van PeeblesMelvin "Block" Van Peebles is an American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, novelist and composer.He is most famous for creating the acclaimed film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which heralded a new era of African American focused films...
declined to do. Instead, he used the claim in posters and t-shirts as a "rallying cry" for the black audience he was trying to reach.