# Racial Composition of Juries **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 13, 2003, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-composition-of-juries/181599 "2003-06-13T15:39:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Foopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Foopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foopy)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2003, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-composition-of-juries/181599/21 "2003-06-15T16:20:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tlw \* > \*\*Setting aside _prejudices_, yes. Setting aside your ability to reason from a position supported by your own knowledge, absolutely not. > > To create a really silly example, did you ever see the episode of Happy Days when The Fonz and Mr. C. were on a jury of a man accused of stealing a woman’s purse while on a motorcycle? Fonz was the lone holdout for acquital because he knew something wasn’t quite right about the prosecution story and when he was able to think about it, he realized that the guy couldn’t have been guilty because the hand that he would’ve needed to snatch the purse was also the hand he needed to accelerate on his particular model of motorcycle. He brought his knowledge into the situation and made a judgment.\*\* Hmm, that’s a good point. I guess I always thought this kind of experience-based reasoning was supposed to be done on the stand by experts, etc (e.g. the defense calls a motorcycle expert to the stand). Come to think of it, Henry Fonda’s character in “12 angry men” did a lot of this, because the defendant’s lawyer was apparently a dolt and Fonda had to bring a lot of his common-sense intuition and knowledge about Chicago’s downtown (the scene of the crime) to bear on the case. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tlw \* > \*\*To give a more particular for instance, I’d hate to be a defendant who had a black alibi witness who said that we were together somewhere other than where the crime occurred “for a minute” to an all-white jury. \*\* I’m not sure I fully understand you on this one… Could you explain it more? Why would an all-white jury be bad in this case? What experience would they have or not have that would make them perceive the witness differently? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2003, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-composition-of-juries/181599/22 "2003-06-15T19:57:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tlw \* > “Adequately judge” and “thinks differently” are two very different animals. Are you retracting your first comment entirely or just backpedaling? > > Besides – adequately judging isn’t the issue, the issue is whether or not different perspectives are being excluded from the jury system because the selection process for the jury _pool_ (not individual juries, but the system which puts butts in the seats to start with) is broken. It’s hard to imagine that a system which has ignored roughly 2/3 of prospective jurors from any subset of the population can be considered to be a good, useful, working system. > > That the brokenness of the system can and does lead to injustices in courts of law should make this an issue of concern to everyone. This is something that **must** be addressed. Well. “thinks differently” is probably a poor choice of words. I actually meant it to mean the same as “adequately judge”. Maybe I missed something, but how do you determine that the jusry selection system is broken. Aren’t potential jurors selected at random from the voter registration pool? Personally, I’d say that if someone doesn’t register to vote, it’s a good sign they are not interested in civic duty. Plus, defense attorneys have significant leeway in choosing jurors. Can you explain what is broken and what you think needs to be done to fix it? ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2003, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-composition-of-juries/181599/23 "2003-06-16T13:38:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by capacitor \* > Izzy, you probably haven’t heard of the [Scottsboro Boys](http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/scottsb.htm) case, have you, to be saying something like that. I’ve heard of the case, and have no idea what you are trying to prove from it. > [@](#): > > Having Blacks in the jury does not guarantee that a black person will get off scot free. True. > [@](#): > > What is this a case of is using statistics to prove disparity of result as a basis of the system breaking down, and the laws governing that system unconstitiutional because of that breakdown. I am disputing the rationale for deciding that such an imbalance is wrong. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Read\_Neck \* > John picked a jury that he could be reasonably sure had never been on a motorcycle in their life and convinced them that you can’t ride one while intoxicated. > [@](#): > > They were,however,perfectly capable of listening to the facts and making a judgement based on those facts. These statements seem inconsistent to me. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by doctordoowop \* > It is an incorrect belief that black jurors are easier on black defendants. Black on black crime is a huge problem, & the typical black juror wants hoodlums off the streets like anyone else. Quite possible. I picked a hypothetical case involving police/criminal. But I also think any case involving black/white crime is probably the same, to an extent. > [@](#): > > This is the irony of the OJ case. Clark regularly coinvicted black criminals in downtown LA, so she figured OJ was the same. Actually the miscalculation in the OJ case was that Clark thought the black females on the jury would identify with the spousal abuse issue. Instead they cleaved to racial lines. It was a folly in PC thinking. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Whack-a-Mole \* > What about a ‘trial of your peers’? Is there any validity to the notion that the jury should roughly reflect the racial makeup of the area in which the crime was committed? I could be wrong but I imagine a jury impaneled of inner city minorities might have a different bent than a jury of white southern baptists. My point is that justice should be an abstract standard, that is either being met in a given instance or not being met. It should not vary based on who your peers happen to be. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spoke- \* > I notice that many posters are thinking this problem through from the defendant’s perspective. > > The Court also considers the potential juror’s perspective (the thinking being that black citizens should not be denied the opportunity to participate in our justice system). I actually had a paragraph about this in the OP, but I deleted it because it is obviously not the basis of the defendant’s case being made here. It may be true that black people have the right to participate, but this would not affect any given trial. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by John Mace \* > I should clarify my earlier statement, though. From a defendant’s position (or either the defense or prosecuting attorney’s), I can see the use of race as one factor in jury selection. However, for the **state** to assume that a white person cannot adequatedly judge a black person, or vice versa, is a form of state sponsored racism. I would say that either race is a valid factor or not. If it is, then there’s no racism. If its not, then both sides should be barred from using it. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Foopy \* > I’m not sure if I understand everything about juries (I’ve only seen movies, really), but I was always under the impression that being a juror was just about deductive reasoning, and the ability, not to _not have_ prejudices, but to _put aside_ one’s prejudices in favor of careful, calculated rationality. That’s a standard that you’d like to see. But it is silly to pretend that it is attainable. Look around. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-composition-of-juries/181599.md?page=1)