The Effect of One Juror

A recent study of race and jury trials done in Florida had astounding findings.  When juries are made up solely of white people, they convict black people 16% more often than they convict white people.  They also found that one black juror’s presence in the jury box brings the conviction rate of blacks back down to that of whites.  The inclusion of one black person in the proceedings completely erased the discrepancy!

In application, one looks back to previous trials and wonders how this could have played a role in tragic trials such as the recent Zimmerman trial.  In this case of the murder of a black teenager on the basis of his appearance, the jury was made up of five white women and one Hispanic woman; by all rights, a black juror should have had a place in the proceedings and decision-making.  We are guaranteed an “impartial jury” by the Constitution, so is it not a failure on the part of the court system to not have people of various backgrounds in the jury box rather than white people only in this case?

So why has this not changed? Because jurors are chosen, not from the victim's, but from the defendant's peers.  Zimmerman is Latino, which is considered white: thus, the strategic choice of jurors.  I have recently learned in my business law class that the defense has the right, called peremptory challenge, to strike any potential juror from the list of possible jurors before a trial for any reason except race (but they can find other reasons to state in order to get rid of a possible juror of the wrong ethnicity).  This is a structural deficiency in our justice system.  The only approach that seems to be counteracting this is by Chicago's new top federal judge, Chief Judge Ruben Castillo, to cast a wider net for jurors into poorer communities and actively demonstrating the value of jury service to minority communities.

Sources:

http://bigthink.com/praxis/the-quiet-racism-in-the-zimmerman-trial
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/21813399-418/new-top-federal-judge-increases-efforts-to-get-more-black-and-latino-jurors.html