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Racist Jurors Are Hidden From The Public. This SCOTUS Case Could Change That.

CREDIT: AP PHOTO/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE
CREDIT: AP PHOTO/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE

On Monday, the Supreme Court took on a case that could shake up rules about juror secrecy and force a conversation about racial bias in trials.

Miguel Angel Pena Rodriguez, an Hispanic man convicted of sexual harassment and illegal contact with two Denver teenagers, charges that racist comments made during jury deliberations precluded his right to a fair trial in Colorado. After he was found guilty, two jurors told his lawyer that another juror had argued in deliberations that Rodriguez was guilty solely because he was Mexican. Pena Rodriguez has since argued that the juror’s racial bias could have played a role in his conviction, and tried to appeal his case.

Court records verify that the juror in question, identified by the initials H.C., said, “I think he did it because he’s Mexican and Mexican men take whatever they want.” The juror also referred to one of Pena Rodriguez’ witnesses as “an illegal” who couldn’t be believed.

One of the two jurors who exposed H.C. said in an affidavit that the third juror “believed that [Pena-Rodriguez] was guilty because in his experience as an ex-law enforcement officer, Mexican men had a bravado that caused them to believe they could do whatever they wanted with women.”

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Pena Rodriguez contends that those inflammatory remarks could have swayed the other jurors. But the state of Colorado pushed back, saying that there was enough evidence to convict him regardless of the racist remarks. Three state courts ruled against Pena Rodriguez’ appeals because jurors’ statements are confidential under federal and state law.

The Supreme Court will hear Rodriguez’s case in the fall and take up the question of whether or not jury secrecy laws stand in the way of his ability to present evidence of racial bias.

Despite the promise of a fair trial, defendants of color often face racist juries who express their bias behind closed doors and are exempt from scrutiny. Both the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and National Congress of American Indians back Pena-Rodriguez, arguing that people of color are commonly vilified based on their race and subjected to derogatory remarks in trials.

Racially-biased convictions stem, in large part, from the fact that people of color are widely excluded from the jury process, despite the the Civil Rights Act of 1875’s ban on racial discrimination in jury selection. Lawyers frequently use flimsy excuses to reject potential jurors and assemble all-white juries that are far more likely to convict — especially when the defendant is a person of color. The Equal Justice Institute discovered that black jurors were been turned away “for the way they walk; for chewing gum; and, frequently, for living in predominantly black neighborhoods.”

In fact, people of color are often rejected because lawyers argue they have their own “unfavorable bias” — coded language to suppress jurors who could side with the defendant.

That doesn’t mean racial bias in the courtroom is always subtle.

Last year, the Supreme Court considered the case of Timothy Tyrone Foster, a black man in Georgia who was sentenced to die by an all-white jury. Prosecutors intentionally removed four jurors from his case because of they were black. Any day now, the high court will decide whether or not Foster should have a retrial that includes a jury of his peers.