Ensuring Fairness in Jury Selection for Serious Crimes

Abstract

LEGL 370 Narrative Responses on Jury Selection Do you think that the make-up of the jury would matter in crimes as heinous as these? Yes, the composition of the jury matters significantly in any criminal trial, especially in cases involving serious crimes like murder. And since there have been open cases of injustices due to unequal representations of the whites and the people of color in the criminal judicial system, the jurors must understand their role in enhancing equality regardless of the intersecting identities of the offenders. The jury's role is to impartially evaluate the evidence presented and make a fair decision based on the law not based on their assumptions or perception towards a certain group. To this effect, the racial composition of the jury can impact perceptions of fairness, particularly if there are concerns about racial bias in the trial process as expressed in the case above. In the case of Miller-El, the exclusion of African American jurors raised serious questions about whether the jury was impartial and whether Miller-El received a fair trial as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. In the real sense, making a fair judgment when there is underrepresentation of the blacks could be practically impossible leading the defendant to seek for appeals for reconsideration of his death sentence. Do you think that the Supreme Court despite the nature of the crimes was making a statement about the jury selection process and how prosecutors select juries to make it clear that no matter the crime, the process of selecting a jury must be without prejudice to uphold the Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial by an impartial jury? Yes, absolutely. Based on the Supreme Courts reaction towards Miller-El case, it became open that the nature of crime does not or should not justify underrepresentation within the jury. On the contrary, the Supreme Court's decision...