The Challenge of Peremptory Challenges: A Brief Study in the Evolution of Law

In 13th century England, the King had changed the legal system by introducing trial by jury, which the people were not happy about. One day, the King’s Justice comes to a county and a local troublemaker is brought before him. The Justice questions William about a stolen mare, and he denies owning her. The Justice suggests that William can ask the people of the village to vouch for him, but William is skeptical because they dislike him. The Justice argues that the villagers are fair, but William is unsure. They discuss the idea of a jury trial and how it has been around for a long time. But they also mention the old practice of punishing those who refuse the jury trial. In the 1960s, Alabama had a jury selection system that made it easy for prosecutors to choose juries without any Black people on them. The Supreme Court said it might be a problem if this happened in every case. In 1982, New York had a similar case but the court there said it was okay to keep using this system. Some Justices on the Supreme Court wanted to review the issue, but others wanted to wait and see how other states handled it. In 1984, the Florida Supreme Court decided in the case State v. Neil that jurors couldn’t be rejected just because of their race. They ruled that if a party tried to reject a juror of a different race, the other party could object and the first party would have to prove they weren’t doing it based on race. Two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed the same issue in Batson v. Kentucky, saying that prosecutors couldn’t reject jurors just because of their race, but defendants had to prove it and prosecutors could still give reasons for their decisions. This led to more questions about which racial groups were protected. Some courts said Hispanic and Italian people were protected, while others said they weren’t. The Neil/Slappy Rule is about not allowing jurors to be removed from juries based on race. The Florida Supreme Court made rules that said if there is a doubt about whether race was a factor in removing a juror, the court will assume it was. They also said that the reasons for removing a juror must be neutral and not just a pretext for racism. Over time, the court seemed to change its mind a bit about how strict the rules should be. Other courts also started applying the rule to other groups like Hispanics and women. In 1996, the Florida Supreme Court clarified that the focus should be on whether the reason for removing a juror is genuine, not necessarily reasonable. Overall, the rule is meant to prevent racism in jury selection.

Source: https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-journal/the-challenge-of-peremptory-challenges-a-brief-study-in-the-evolution-of-law/