Study Finds Blacks Barred from Serving on Southern Juries Proving Racism is Alive in Some US Court Systems

Study finds that blacks are barred from serving on juries in Southern cities, proving racism is still alive in some court systems in America.

Who would have thought that some pockets of America are still stuck in the 1900s when overt racism raged. According to the NY Times, a study by the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center has found that blacks are blocked from serving on juries in the South. Why am I not surprised by that trend?

An analysis of Jefferson Parish, La., by the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center found that from 1999 to 2007, blacks were struck from juries at more than three times the rate of whites.

In North Carolina, at least 26 current death row defendants were sentenced by all-white juries. In South Carolina, a prosecutor said he struck a black potential juror because he “shucked and jived” when he walked.

Studies have shown that racially diverse juries deliberate longer, consider a wider variety of perspectives and make fewer factual errors than all-white juries, and that predominantly black juries are less likely to impose the death penalty.

Excluding jurors based on race has been illegal since 1875, but after Reconstruction, all-white juries remained the norm in the South.

“It really made lynching and the Ku Klux Klan possible,” said Christopher Waldrep, a historian at San Francisco State University and the author of a forthcoming book about a lawyer who was able, in a rare case, to prove jury discrimination in Mississippi in 1906. “If you’d had a lot of black grand jurors investigating crimes, it would have made lynching impossible.”

Read more: Study Finds Blacks Blocked From Southern Juries | NY Times