Law Commons^™

Removal Of Women And African-Americans In Jury Selection In South Carolina Capital Cases, 1997- 2012, Ann M. Eisenberg

Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court’s May 2016 decision in Foster v. Chatman involved smoking-gun evidence that the State of Georgia discriminated against African-Americans in jury selection during Foster’s 1987 capital trial. Foster was decided on the thirtieth anniversary of Batson v. Kentucky, the first in the line of cases to prohibit striking prospective jurors on the basis of their race or gender. But the evidence of discrimination for Batson challenges is rarely so obvious and available as it was in Foster.

Where litigants have struggled to produce evidence of discrimination in individual cases, empirical studies have been able to assess jury selection …

Race And Recalcitrance: The Miller-El Remands, Sheri Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In Batson v. Kentucky, the Supreme Court held that a prosecutor may not peremptorily challenge a juror based upon his or her race. Although Baston was decided more than twenty years ago, some lower courts still resist its command. Three recent cases provide particularly egregious examples of that resistance. The Fifth Circuit refused the Supreme Court's instruction in Miller-El v. Cockrell, necessitating a second grant of certiorari in Miller-El v. Dretke. The court then reversed and remanded four lower court cases for reconsideration in light of Miller-El, but in two cases the lower courts have thus …

Wishing Petitioners To Death: Factual Misrepresentations In Fourth Circuit Capital Cases, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Race, Peremptories, And Capital Jury Deliberations, Samuel R. Gross

Articles

In Lonnie Weeks's capital murder trial in Virginia in 1993, the jury was instructed: If you find from the evidence that the Commonwealth has proved beyond a reasonable doubt, either of the two alternative aggravating factors], and as to that alternative you are unanimous, then you may fix the punishment of the defendant at death or if you believe from all the evidence that the death penalty is not justified, then you shall fix the punishment of the defendant at life imprisonment ... This instruction is plainly ambiguous, at least to a lay audience. Does it mean that if the …

Batson Ethics For Prosecutors And Trial Court Judges, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Langugage And Culture (Not To Say Race) Of Peremptory Challenges, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Peremptory Challenges: Free Strikes No More, H. Patrick Furman

Publications

No abstract provided.

Batson V. Kentucky: Curing The Disease But Killing The Patient, William T. Pizzi

Publications

No abstract provided.

Black Innocence And The White Jury, Sheri Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Racial prejudice has come under increasingly close scrutiny during the past thirty years, yet its influence on the decisionmaking of criminal juries remains largely hidden from judicial and critical examination. In this Article, Professor Johnson takes a close look at this neglected area. She first sets forth a large body of social science research that reveals a widespread tendency among whites to convict black defendants in instances in which white defendants would be acquitted. Next, she argues that none of the existing techniques for eliminating the influence of racial bias on criminal trials adequately protects minority-race defendants. She contends that …