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Peremptory Pragmatism: Religion And The Administration Of The Batson Rule, A. C. Johnstone

Faculty Law Review Articles

This article argues that religion-based peremptory challenges, while avoiding substantial administrative and privacy costs, allow litigants to strike potentially biased jurors and thus vindicates the Constitution's guarantee of a trial by an impartial jury. Part I explains the pragmatic value of the peremptory challenge and how courts accommodate the peremptory challenge under equal protection principles as applied to race, sex, and other personal characteristics. Part II describes the Minnesota Supreme Court's refusal to extend Batson to religion in State v. Davis, and other courts' approaches to the religion question before and after the Supreme Court denied certiorari to Davis …