US Supreme Court To Hear Georgia Jury Discrimination Case
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Monday on a case from Georgia concerning how lawyers consider race when choosing juries.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Monday on a 1987 death penalty case from Georgia. The issue is how lawyers consider race when choosing juries.
Nearly 20 years after Timothy Tyrone Foster was sentenced to death, defense attorneys found evidence that suggests prosecutors had eliminated potential black jurors because of their race.
Striking jurors based on race or gender is illegal, explained WABE legal analyst Page Pate, but he said lawyers often say they’re eliminating a juror for one reason, while the real reason is probably race.
“To me this is probably one of the most important cases the Supreme Court is going to take up this year,” he said. “This affects criminal cases, it affects civil cases and it literally goes on all the time. Because one thing I think most trial lawyers will tell you if they’re being honest is, race matters in jury trials.”
Pate said the hope is that the Supreme Court will weigh in not just on this case, but on the practice overall of lawyers using race to choose juries, but saying they’re not.
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