Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Expanding Peña-Rodriguez V. Colorado To Protect Criminal Defendants From Explicit Gender Animus, Katie Hicks

Arkansas Law Review

In 2017, the United States Supreme Court extinguished explicit racial animus expressed during juror deliberations criminal trials. Though courts have repeatedly cloaked the jury’s deliberation room—essentially, “black box”—in impenetrable armor, Miguel Angel Peña-Rodriguez leveraged the American promise of equality, piercing a juror’s animus and bringing it within reach of the Court. His case established that protection of the jury’s black box decision making must yield to an even more fundamental protection: the equal protection of the law and the right to a fair and impartial trial by jury.