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NEWS > U.S.A. > STUDY FINDS BLACK JURORS ROUTINELY GET OUT OF JURY DUTY
STUDY FINDS BLACK JURORS ROUTINELY GET OUT OF JURY DUTY
June 24 2010
Selma, AL – The stain prejudice is something that may never leave the American psyche. Even with a black President, black movie stars, and black captains of industry the long term effects of slavery and segregation are still very much present in 
American society. Certainly strides have been made and the situation is dramatically better than it was even twenty years ago, but hundreds of years of separation and prejudice cannot be undone by one election or a hit movie. The American experience will forever be coloured by that experience.
Of course, there are many who use that to their advantage, both black and white. The power of racism has certainly waned in recent years but in certain segments of the country, it is very much a potent force for effecting change. Whether it is the hooded power of the KKK or the pervasive power of White Guilt, the remnants of racism continue to provide strength for those best able to manipulate it to their advantage. One area that has long gone unseen by the majority of Americans is the jury system which a recent study concluded frequently excludes black people from serving in southern states, something people of all ethnic backgrounds have been trying to accomplish for decades.
“The evidence of racial bias that we focus on is evidence that's pretty obvious. t tends not to be unintentional. ... We've had African-American jurors excluded because they're too old at 43, because they're too young at 28, while other white jurors much older are being accepted, and other white jurors much younger are being accepted. ... We've had jurors excluded because they were in an interracial marriage or had a biracial son,” Bryan Stephenson of Equal Justice Initiative told NPR. “It is a violation of the law but it is an area of the law where there has been almost no enforcement. The culture has tolerated this all-white jury, white prosecutor, white judge phenomenon, because that's what people have seen for decades.”
The study was conducted in Alabama which has long been the seat of prejudice in the country.
“The jury is the basis for the modern judicial system. By extension, it is the basis of modern democracies as it is the only way to provide accused people a fair and honest assessment of their actions and potential guilt or innocent. Without the jury much of what we have built in the modern world would fall apart and our essential human rights would fall alongside them,” said Scrape TV Legal analyst Gabe Hawthorne. “Of course that doesn’t make the experience any more compelling. I know the one time I had to go it was one of the worst experiences of my life. You sit there for hours, get rejected, come back and when you finally get picked you sit and listen to this boring pitch for hours. For something so essential to the way we live our lives they really haven’t done much to make it a compelling experience.”
The study pointed out that because of the inequalities in the jury selection process many black defendants are being assessed by all white juries which in that area of the world may compromise their rights.
“The nature of a jury is to be judged by your peers and that is not what is happening in Alabama. In the north or California it wouldn’t be such an issue but in that area of the country there is still very much two separate societies between black and white people and they are distinct. When it comes to peerage in the judicial system that is very much an issue,” continued Hawthorne. “Of course getting out of jury duty could cause a few people to convert. People concoct all kinds of stories to get out of serving but I would be surprised to see more than a few people showing up with shoe polish all over their face. Who knows, maybe this could help heal the rifts between the two races.”
Most rejected black jurors were more than happy to not serve.
Mike Michaels, American Correspondent
NEWS > U.S.A. > STUDY FINDS BLACK JURORS ROUTINELY GET OUT OF JURY DUTY
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