The Lex-icon Undermines its Own Propaganda by Assembling White Juries for White Men who Murdered Blacks; Destroying Illusions of Fairness and Revealing the True Status of Blacks in a Free Range Prison

LEX-ICON = LAW AS IMAGE. From [HERE] A Black man jogging through the streets near Brunswick, Ga., was shot and killed after three White men chased him. A 17-year-old White vigilante traveled to Kenosha, Wis., where Black Lives Matter-inspired protests had turned violent, and shot three people, killing two. Those racially tinged, politically charged shootings last year rocked the country; now, high-profile murder trials are underway.

Whatever the verdicts, it was important that the public have confidence that the process was fair. Unfortunately, rulings by the judges presiding over the cases threaten to undermine citizen trust about justice being done.

In the case of the three men charged with murder in February 2020’s killing of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery, Superior Court Judge Timothy R. Walmsley approved the selection of a nearly all-White jury. Defense attorneys used peremptory challenges to eliminate all but one Black person from the final jury pool, prompting a challenge from prosecutors citing the landmark Supreme Court ruling, Batson v. Kentucky, that lawyers cannot discriminate on the basis of race in jury selection. Judge Walmsley acknowledged an appearance of “intentional discrimination” but said defense lawyers had been able to cite “race neutral” reasons. But, as Post contributing columnist Paul Butler wrote, the judge already had certified that everyone in the final pool, including 12 Black people, could evaluate the evidence fairly.

In the case of Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois man who drove to Kenosha with an assault weapon and — like the Georgia defendants — is claiming self-defense, at issue is what some observers see as rulings biased in favor of the defense. Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge Bruce Schroeder overruled the objection of prosecutors and will allow the jury to see a video of police thanking and giving bottles of water to a group of vigilantes, but he won’t permit a video of Mr. Rittenhouse declaring 15 days before the shooting “Bro, I wish I had my [expletive] AR, I’d start shooting rounds at them” about people he suspected of shoplifting. Most glaring was the judge’s decision that the people who were killed could be called “arsonists,” “looters” or “rioters” if they took part in these activities but could not be called “victims.” All of the parties in the case are White, but there is a racial element: The protests were in response to the police shooting of a Black man. The Kenosha jury is also nearly all White, with one person of color among the primary jurors. [MORE]

On a daily basis African Americans are denied one of the most basic fundamental rights inherent in American democracy; the right to sit on a jury.

There are only a few ways that Americans can meaningfully exercise their citizenship; enlisting in the military, running for national office, voting and serving on a jury. Jury service is a basic right of citizenship . With the exception of voting, "for most citizens the honor and privilege of jury duty is their most significant opportunity to participate in the democratic process." Whether "jury service be deemed a right, a privilege, or a duty, the State may no more extend it to some of its citizens and deny it to others on racial grounds than it may invidiously discriminate in the offering and withholding of the elective franchise." The "exclusion of jurors is like the exclusion of voters: the exclusion of voters by reason of race does violence to constitutional ideals, whether or not the exclusion affects the outcome of any particular election."

Despite clear commands from the Supreme Court, since 1880 the right of African Americans to serve as jurors has been elusive. The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment prohibits African Americans from being excluded from a jury because of their race or "on the false assumption that members of [the] race as a group are not qualified to serve as jurors." The Court has held that the 14th Amendment prohibits a State from resorting to discrimination at all stages of the jury selection process . Even though the principles of the 14th Amendment equal protection clause guaranteeing the right of African Americans to be free from jury discrimination "have been consistently and repeatedly reaffirmed in numerous decisions" , these Constitutional guidelines are regularly violated through the use of peremptory challenges.
All people have biases and prejudices. When citizens are asked to serve on a jury, it is their civic duty to be impartial, to put aside their biases in the interests of justice. When African Americans are removed from a jury because of their race, it amounts to a judgement of unfitness for citizenship . As Justice Thurgood Marshall explained, "no one can be expected to perceive himself to be a full participant in our society as a whole, when he is told by a representative of the government that, because of his race, he is too stupid or too biased to serve on a particular jury."

A peremptory challenge is a method of removing jurors from a jury pool. A juror may be removed for any reason; so long as it is a race or gender "neutral" reason. Black jurors are excluded by challenges that are disguised as race neutral but in fact are pretext or surrogates for race.

The following explanations for striking African Americans were found to be race neutral: style of dress and demeanor(1), participation in church activities (2) , lack of education (3) , unemployment and wearing a beard (4) , residence in a high crime neighborhood and unemployment (5) , residence in same neighborhood as defendant (6) , lack of education and business experience (7), being young or being a social worker (8) , membership in Operation PUSH (9) , membership in the NAACP (10), affiliation with Alabama State University(11) , having a relative that was a felon (12) , having a criminal record,poor body language, eye contact, having incarcerated relative (13) , being a social worker and agreeing with the O.J. Simpson verdict (14) , having low intelligence or marginal literacy(15) , being unemployed, 22 years old and wearing an earring (16), living in same the neighborhood as defendant and exhibited a lack of intellectual capacity (17) . [MORE]