Nope. Not, Gustav, Ivan, or even Katrina. The boxer.
Today I participated in jury selection for the first time. It was kind of cool- trying to figure people out; their psychology; their quirks; where they're coming from.
11 prospective jurors to fill a jury of 7 for a civil trial.
My client is a black guy.
All of the 11 prospective jurors self-identified as white.
As I saw that on their bio sheets, Dylan's "Hurricane" started running through my head.
"No one doubted that he pulled the trigger.
And though they could not produce the gun,
The D.A. said he was the one who did the deed
And the all-white jury agreed."
My client is not on trial for murder. There is no gun. But the jury is all-white. Of course, it shouldn't matter. And none of the jurors would say yes if I asked them if they had any racial prejudices or if their decision in the case would be at all affected by my client's race. But, of course people do have racial prejudices and their decisions are affected by those. So, even though it shouldn't matter, it does matter, if only for the history of American courts entrenched with cases where all-white juries convict and otherwise rule against black people.
So, now I am trying to think of a question one could ask prospective jurors that would give me some information about their feelings about black people (or whomever)without asking them to admit in open court that they are racist. Any suggestions?
5 comments:
Wow, what a conundrum. You want to get a feel for their potential racism without getting them to admit it in court. What about going the other way, something like, do you have any friends of a different race than your own? Or, do you have any black friends? I'm just thinking if someone had friends, someone they'd have in their home for dinner, they would probably not be a racist. Good luck - keep the blog posted on how this comes out.
when i got questioned for jury duty, the lawyers just came right out and asked shit like, "are you racist?" "Do you treat people of latino decent differently than white people?" I was really surprised. And of course the assholes that were just trying to get out of duty would say, "yes." how about, "do you ever interact with people like my client?" "if not, how is he different from the people you normally interact with?" i don't know...
I'm emailing you an interesting social psych article on jury selection...the researchers even included questions to ask potential jurors. Not that it solves anything, but I just found it interesting, particularly that even the act of mentioning race in jury selection made white jurors more conscientious during deliberations.
mj has the right idea. "what proportion of your childhood neighborhood or high school was white/black/hispanic, etc," "how many people of color do you work with."
when i get to do voir dire and if it's relevant, I want to ask, "do any of you have any close family members that you believe have racist tendencies." if someone answers yes, i want to ask what makes his or her family member does to make them think that. then ask the other jurors if any of them harbor those similar feelings. a little involved, yes, but it gives a working definition of racism and opens the door by naming someone not in the room as having racist tendencies.
and, yes, i understand that was a very impressive comment coming from a dog.
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