Petitioner
James Kirkland Batson
Respondent
State of Kentucky
Petitioner's Claim
That the state acted improperly in selecting a jury for Batson's trial.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
J. David Niehaus
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Rickie L. Pearson, Assistant Attorney General of Kentucky
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Sandra Day O'Connor, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. (writing for the Court), John Paul Stevens, ByronR. White
Justices Dissenting
Warren E. Burger, William H. Rehnquist
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
30 April 1986
Decision
That the case must return to the lower court, and the prosecutor shall have to provide to the judge valid, nondiscriminatory reasons for his dismissal offour African American potential jurors.
Significance
Limited the use of the peremptory challenge, which had given attorneys on both sides the right to strike potential jurors without providing a valid reason. Sex-based peremptory challenges were extended to include those based on race, making it illegal to dismiss a juror based on race.
In 1981, James Kirkland Batson went to trial in Jefferson County, Kentucky, on burglary charges. Batson was an African American. During the jury selectionprocess, the prosecutor used the "peremptory challenge" to dismiss four African Americans from the panel, and an all-white jury was selected. The peremptory challenge had been a cornerstone of the American jury selection process since the late eighteenth century, and had become particularly entrenched in the legal system since the mid-1960s. In essence, it allowed a prosecutor to object to potential jurors without providing a reason for their unsuitability,and dismiss them from having to serve. In legal terminology, "peremptory" means "precluding further debate or action;" another definition implies "authoritarian, mandatory."
Selecting the Jury
Peremptory-challenge rules often resulted in all-white juries in criminal cases for African American defendants, on the assumption that an African American might not vote to convict another African American. In a more extreme case,it was used to exclude African American jurors from the trial of a member ofthe Ku Klux Klan charged with the murder of an African American. One significant Supreme Court ruling upholding the peremptory challenge came in 1965 inSwain v. Alabama, which asserted that a very obvious pattern of bias on the part of the prosecutor--that he had a long history of keeping African Americans off juries--had to be proven in court. This had occurred only twicesince 1965; five states then passed legislation amending their state constitution to overrule Swain. Peremptory challenges were still common, however, primarily because they were seen as assuring that an unbiased and qualified jury was selected from the pool. Likewise, a lawyer for an African American defendant would be allowed to dismiss white jurors.
Batson's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the jury on the grounds that anall-white jury violated Batson's Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to a fair trial, but the judge denied the motion. He was convicted, and his lawyersappealed. Kentucky's State Supreme Court upheld the lower court's decision.The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund became involved, and arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court began in December of 1985. On 30 April 1986, the Court announced its decision in favor of James Batson.
The Decision
Batson v. Kentucky reversed the 1965 Swain ruling. (The case gained added impact because of the fact that perhaps only once a year does theHigh Court reverse its prior decisions.) Justice Powell delivered the opinionof the 7-2 majority vote. Justice White, who had written the 1965 decision,sided with the majority to overturn it. The Court ruled that peremptory challenges, in effect, deny a defendant the right to trial by jury of a cross-section of the community. This right is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to theU.S. Constitution, which holds that citizens have the right to a trial by jury in the community where the crime allegedly took place.
More importantly, the Powell opinion declared that peremptory challenges werein violation of the first section of Fourteenth Amendment, also known as theEqual Protection Clause, which reads, in part:
Thus, according to the Court, equal protection prohibited the selection of jury members based on their race. With Batson, the Court affirmed the principle it upheld in an 1880 decision that ruled it unfair to force a defendant to stand trial before a jury from which members of his race were purposefully excluded. Such exclusions, the Court said further, assumed that African Americans were incapable of making an impartial decision when considering thecase of an African American defendant, as if they were not qualified to serveon a jury.
Broadened in Scope
After sending Batson v. Kentucky back to the lower judicial body, theHigh Court set forth new rules for peremptory challenges to be used there. Ifa defendant does not approve of the selected jury, he or she must indicate that there were grounds to "infer" that a juror was excluded because of race--for instance, that both are members of a cognizable minority group. Next, thejudge must demand a "neutral" explanation from the prosecutor, shifting theburden of proof to the state. The prosecutor's reasons for rejecting the juror must be based on impartial grounds. The High Court also ruled that either the defense lawyer or the trial judge can object to the peremptory challenge,but it must be raised at the initial trial (not in an appeals case) and before the jury is sworn in.
Justices Burger and Rehnquist dissented from the majority opinion. They deemed it unwise to overturn an established legal precedent, and Rehnquist noted that when peremptory challenges were used broadly--that is, to exclude white jurors from cases involving white defendants, for example, they seemed to be within the law. Other opponents, the most vocal of whom was the National District Attorneys Association, asserted that the Batson ruling provided the defendant in a criminal trial more rights than it did the average citizen.Some legal analysts contended that Batson v. Kentucky would spell theeventual death of the peremptory challenge completely. Indeed, though it originally applied only to criminal cases, it was later expanded to civil trials,and then broadened to include ethnicity and gender discrimination.
Related Cases
James Kirkland Batson
Respondent
State of Kentucky
Petitioner's Claim
That the state acted improperly in selecting a jury for Batson's trial.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
J. David Niehaus
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Rickie L. Pearson, Assistant Attorney General of Kentucky
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Sandra Day O'Connor, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. (writing for the Court), John Paul Stevens, ByronR. White
Justices Dissenting
Warren E. Burger, William H. Rehnquist
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
30 April 1986
Decision
That the case must return to the lower court, and the prosecutor shall have to provide to the judge valid, nondiscriminatory reasons for his dismissal offour African American potential jurors.
Significance
Limited the use of the peremptory challenge, which had given attorneys on both sides the right to strike potential jurors without providing a valid reason. Sex-based peremptory challenges were extended to include those based on race, making it illegal to dismiss a juror based on race.
In 1981, James Kirkland Batson went to trial in Jefferson County, Kentucky, on burglary charges. Batson was an African American. During the jury selectionprocess, the prosecutor used the "peremptory challenge" to dismiss four African Americans from the panel, and an all-white jury was selected. The peremptory challenge had been a cornerstone of the American jury selection process since the late eighteenth century, and had become particularly entrenched in the legal system since the mid-1960s. In essence, it allowed a prosecutor to object to potential jurors without providing a reason for their unsuitability,and dismiss them from having to serve. In legal terminology, "peremptory" means "precluding further debate or action;" another definition implies "authoritarian, mandatory."
Selecting the Jury
Peremptory-challenge rules often resulted in all-white juries in criminal cases for African American defendants, on the assumption that an African American might not vote to convict another African American. In a more extreme case,it was used to exclude African American jurors from the trial of a member ofthe Ku Klux Klan charged with the murder of an African American. One significant Supreme Court ruling upholding the peremptory challenge came in 1965 inSwain v. Alabama, which asserted that a very obvious pattern of bias on the part of the prosecutor--that he had a long history of keeping African Americans off juries--had to be proven in court. This had occurred only twicesince 1965; five states then passed legislation amending their state constitution to overrule Swain. Peremptory challenges were still common, however, primarily because they were seen as assuring that an unbiased and qualified jury was selected from the pool. Likewise, a lawyer for an African American defendant would be allowed to dismiss white jurors.
Batson's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the jury on the grounds that anall-white jury violated Batson's Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to a fair trial, but the judge denied the motion. He was convicted, and his lawyersappealed. Kentucky's State Supreme Court upheld the lower court's decision.The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund became involved, and arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court began in December of 1985. On 30 April 1986, the Court announced its decision in favor of James Batson.
The Decision
Batson v. Kentucky reversed the 1965 Swain ruling. (The case gained added impact because of the fact that perhaps only once a year does theHigh Court reverse its prior decisions.) Justice Powell delivered the opinionof the 7-2 majority vote. Justice White, who had written the 1965 decision,sided with the majority to overturn it. The Court ruled that peremptory challenges, in effect, deny a defendant the right to trial by jury of a cross-section of the community. This right is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to theU.S. Constitution, which holds that citizens have the right to a trial by jury in the community where the crime allegedly took place.
More importantly, the Powell opinion declared that peremptory challenges werein violation of the first section of Fourteenth Amendment, also known as theEqual Protection Clause, which reads, in part:
. . . No State shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Thus, according to the Court, equal protection prohibited the selection of jury members based on their race. With Batson, the Court affirmed the principle it upheld in an 1880 decision that ruled it unfair to force a defendant to stand trial before a jury from which members of his race were purposefully excluded. Such exclusions, the Court said further, assumed that African Americans were incapable of making an impartial decision when considering thecase of an African American defendant, as if they were not qualified to serveon a jury.
Broadened in Scope
After sending Batson v. Kentucky back to the lower judicial body, theHigh Court set forth new rules for peremptory challenges to be used there. Ifa defendant does not approve of the selected jury, he or she must indicate that there were grounds to "infer" that a juror was excluded because of race--for instance, that both are members of a cognizable minority group. Next, thejudge must demand a "neutral" explanation from the prosecutor, shifting theburden of proof to the state. The prosecutor's reasons for rejecting the juror must be based on impartial grounds. The High Court also ruled that either the defense lawyer or the trial judge can object to the peremptory challenge,but it must be raised at the initial trial (not in an appeals case) and before the jury is sworn in.
Justices Burger and Rehnquist dissented from the majority opinion. They deemed it unwise to overturn an established legal precedent, and Rehnquist noted that when peremptory challenges were used broadly--that is, to exclude white jurors from cases involving white defendants, for example, they seemed to be within the law. Other opponents, the most vocal of whom was the National District Attorneys Association, asserted that the Batson ruling provided the defendant in a criminal trial more rights than it did the average citizen.Some legal analysts contended that Batson v. Kentucky would spell theeventual death of the peremptory challenge completely. Indeed, though it originally applied only to criminal cases, it was later expanded to civil trials,and then broadened to include ethnicity and gender discrimination.
Related Cases
- Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202 (1965).
- Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400 (1991).
- J.E.B. v. State ex rel. T.B., 511 U.S. 127 (1994).
- State v. Bryant, 662 N.E.2d 846 (1995).
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