Four years after the shooting death of Laquan McDonald, the police officer, Jason Van Dyke, faced his day in court. But in a trial where race became central to the case, there’s only one black person on the jury. And that’s in a county where nearly a quarter of people are black. How did this happen? In jury selection, racial discrimination has historically been tricky. Discrimination isn’t allowed in jury selection, thanks to what’s called a “Batson challenge.” But the problem is — Batson has been widely regarded as a failure at keeping racism out of the jury box. Watch the video above to find out why that is, and why it complicates the prospect of a fair trial by jury.
Saturday, October 13, 2018
The big problem with how we pick juries
Four years after the shooting death of Laquan McDonald, the police officer, Jason Van Dyke, faced his day in court. But in a trial where race became central to the case, there’s only one black person on the jury. And that’s in a county where nearly a quarter of people are black. How did this happen? In jury selection, racial discrimination has historically been tricky. Discrimination isn’t allowed in jury selection, thanks to what’s called a “Batson challenge.” But the problem is — Batson has been widely regarded as a failure at keeping racism out of the jury box. Watch the video above to find out why that is, and why it complicates the prospect of a fair trial by jury.
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