Lack of Color in the Jury Selection

Nearly 15 percent of the adult American population is summoned to jury service each year in federal and state courts. The jury selection includes individuals over the age of 18 who are registered to vote and have a driver’s license. However, repeated criticisms are raised that people of color are vastly underrepresented in the jury pools. 

Many cases are getting a great deal of attention from the public on the lack of diversity within a jury. These cases include: Flowers v. Mississippi, State v. Kevin Plain, and the Ahmaud Arbery case. The three cases mentioned are similar in that the defendant was a black individual who had a jury filled predominantly with white individuals.  

In State v. Kevin Plain, the African-American defendant challenged his harassment conviction arguing he did not have an impartial jury. He asserted that his right to an impartial jury was violated when only 1 of 49 potential jurors that showed up for jury selection was an African-American. The defendant offered a couple of practices that caused the underrepresentation of colored people in his jury pool. He addressed the failure to update addresses when summons were returned as undeliverable, failure to follow up with jurors who did not respond, and failure to hold jurors accountable through enforcement proceedings for failing to respond or appear. In upholding his conviction, the Supreme Court of Iowa described these as “run-of-the-mill practices” that the Supreme Court has declined to condemn. 

The issues the defendant raised are based on the justice system’s reliance on outdated and ineffective methods of communication with prospective jurors. Nevertheless, more criticisms are raised that people of color are underrepresented in jury pools because of jury service not being financially feasible and the exclusions of those who have committed a crime. These key issues do not even account for a peremptory challenge, which allows attorneys to dismiss jurors for any reason except race, ethnicity, or gender. 

The peremptory challenge has been a topic of debate as the Arizona Supreme Court recently got rid of it. Many question whether this challenge does more harm than good. They speculate that many attorneys can dismiss potential jurors because of their race and simply give a different reason to the public. These reasons can be as simple as “the potential juror did not seem to be paying close attention” or “they looked angry and did not seem like they wanted to be here.” These are a couple of reasons that the court has accepted, which leads to no real difficulty to have a juror dismissed for a hidden agenda.

Therefore, numerous individuals are blaming the structure of jury selection and how it leads to people of color being underrepresented. They are pointing to several causes that lead to this underrepresentation of color in jury pools. Nevertheless, the question is whether the courts will take some type of action to attempt to fix these “run-of-the-mill” practices.