Analysis Shows Dallas Prosecutors More Likely to Exclude Blacks DALLAS (AP) - Dallas County prosecutors excluded eligible blacks from juries at more than twice the rate they turned down whites, according to a newspaper investigation. Being black was the most important personal trait affecting which jurors prosecutors rejected, according to a statistical analysis by The Dallas Morning News, which published the first part of a three-part series on jury selection Sunday. Jurors' attitudes toward criminal justice issues also played an important role, but even when blacks and whites answered key questions the same way, blacks were rejected at higher rates, the newspaper said. District Attorney Bill Hill said his prosecutors don't exclude jurors on the basis of race. ’The statistics may show we strike more blacks, but it's not because they're black," he said. ’It's because for one reason or another, they (prosecutors) don't think they are going to be fair and impartial." The newspaper examined 108 non-capital felony cases tried in 2002. Reporters interviewed prosecutors, defense lawyers, jurors, judges and scholars. They reviewed more than 6,500 juror information cards, read transcripts of juror questioning and analyzed lawyers' strike patterns. The analysis found that prosecutors treated the responses of blacks and whites to key questions differently. A review of transcripts of juror questioning, available in 59 of the 108 cases studied by The News, showed that: -Juror views on rehabilitation were the most important factor in determining whom prosecutors rejected, but they excluded 79 percent of blacks who favored rehabilitation over punishment or deterrence, compared with 55 percent of whites who gave the same answer. -Prosecutors excluded 78 percent of blacks who acknowledged that they or someone close to them had had contact with the criminal justice system, compared with only 39 percent of whites. -About 2 percent of all jurors in the study said they or someone close to them had had a bad experience with police or the courts. Prosecutors rejected every black who gave that answer, compared with 39 percent of whites. The president of the Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association said the newspaper findings confirm his experiences in the courtroom. ’It's shocking that race continues to play a significant role in the dynamics of the jury system in Dallas County," Peter Barrett said. ’Justice should not be motivated by partisanship or race or any other factor which is prohibited by equal protection of the Constitution." The study showed that blacks served on Dallas juries in proportion to their population because prosecutors did not eliminate all blacks, and defense attorneys excluded white jurors at three times the rate they rejected blacks. Those dueling prosecution and defense tactics produce only an illusion of equal rights that flouts the intent of several U.S. Supreme Court rulings, according to legal experts. ’We're talking about the court of law, and there is blatant disregard and violation of the law going on," said law professor David Baldus, a death penalty opponent and a professor at the University of Iowa who is a leading researcher on jury selection bias. The U.S. Supreme Court in June cited racial discrimination in overturning the death sentence of murder convict Thomas Miller-El, but Dallas prosecutors will retry him. Miller-El was sentenced to death row in 1986 by a 12-member jury that included one black. Prosecutors struck 10 of the 11 blacks eligible to serve. The high court overturned Miller-El's conviction, citing a manual, written in 1969 and used until at least 1980, that instructed prosecutors on how to exclude minorities from Texas juries. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter called racial discrimination in Dallas County's jury selection process unquestionable. ’If anything more is needed for an undeniable explanation of what was going on, history supplies it," Souter wrote in the 6-3 decision. ’The prosecutors took their cues from a 20-year-old manual of tips on jury selection, as shown by their notes of the race of each potential juror." The manual was written by Jon Sparling, a top assistant to longtime Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade. In 1986, The Dallas Morning News reported that it found that county prosecutors routinely manipulated the racial makeup of juries through legal challenges, excluding up to 90 percent of qualified black candidates from felony juries. Wade said then that the newspaper's study, based on computer analysis of court records of 100 randomly selected felony jury trials in 1983 and 1984, did not convince him that prosecutors engaged in systematic exclusion of blacks.

We hope you found this article helpful.

Search for more legal news articles related to:
"Analysis Shows Dallas Prosecutors More Likely to Exclude Blacks"

Bookmark this Page!