Bringing Batson to Life

Who is Batson?

Most attorneys are familiar with Batson v. Kentucky and know what it stands for. They understand that a Batson violation occurs when an attorney uses a peremptory challenge to eliminate a juror on the basis of race. They likely also understand the reality that the Batson rule provides little in the way of constitutional protection and largely fails in its attempt to maintain a representative jury of ones' peers. 

What most attorneys might not know is who James Kirkland Batson is. He is a truck-driver from Louisville, Kentucky whose criminal career began when he was ten, and he started stealing pop bottles to buy a pair of Chuck Taylors. In his later years he became a "pocket burglar," stealing only what he could fit in his pockets. When he was arrested for burglary he decided to take it to trial. In his first trial, one black female hung the jury, but the prosecutor decided to try it again. This time, he wouldn't make the same mistake, and he used his peremptory strikes to eliminate four black jurors, leaving an all while jury, a white judge and two white attorneys to decide the fate of James Batson, a black man. When interviewed in 2016, the prosecutor, Joe Guttman claimed that he didn't remember why he struck those jurors but insisted it had nothing to do with race.

Why do we need the Batson rule?

The need for the Batson rule arises out of damaging racial stereotypes. In 1986, shortly after Batson was decided, a prosecutor named Jack McMahon gave a lecture to young prosecutors on how to pick a jury:

"In selecting blacks, you don't want the real educated ones... In my experience young, black women are very bad. There's an antagonism I guess maybe because they're downtrodden on two respects....They're women and they're blacks and... they somehow want to take it out on somebody and you don't want it to be you." 

What does the Batson Rule require?

Under Batson, all an attorney has to do is give a race-neutral reason for the strike. In More Perfect's podcast on Batson, called Object Anyway, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson told a story from his time working as a defense attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, shortly after the Batson decision. Once, after a jury panel member testified to being a "mason," the prosecutor insisted that he struck him because did not want a member of a masonic lodge on the jury due to the fact that members have their own codes and culture. When questioned, the potential juror explained that he was not a member of a masonic lodge, but rather a brick mason. The judge said to the prosecutor, "I still know what you mean, I'll let you exclude him." This story sheds light on the failure of Batson and the continuous problem of potential jurors being dismissed on the basis of race.

How do you fix it?

Attorneys and academics alike balk at the thought of eliminating peremptory strikes, however, it might be the only way to ensure that racial bias does not play a role in the composition of a jury.