| Venue: | SCOTUS |
| Facts: | In a civil case, Leesville used two of its three preemptory challenges to remove black persons from the prosepective jury. Edmondson is black. |
| Posture: | Edmondson protests, and demands a race-neutral explanation for the challenges; the trial court declines to force Leesville to comply, on the grounds that Batson v. KY doesn't apply to civil proceedings. The jury finds for Edmondson, but cancels out most of the damages because of contributory negligence. |
| Issue: | Does the use of racially motivated preemptory challenges violate the Equal Protection clause? |
| Holding: | Yes, it violates the potential jurors' equal protection rights. |
| Rule: | It's not constitutional to exclude people from traditional government functions because of race. |
| Reasoning: | The jury is the quintessential governing body. A private party can't
exercise its challenges without the assistance of the court (reminds
me of Shelley v. Kraemer). The motive here may be to
protect a private interest, but the objective of jury selection
is to determine representation of a governmental body. When
private litigants participate in the selection process, they are
serving a government function, and require the government's
assistance.
This is all the more disgraceful because it's happening in the courthouse itself, a supposed bastion of constitutional authority. |
| Dicta: | O'Connor (dissenting): the nature of a peremptory challenge is that its
exercise is within the discretion of the litigant. In fact, this
is a protection of liberty, by interposing the will of the
litigants between the government and them.
Scalia (dissenting): this means that a minority defendant is unable to prevent the empanelment of an all-white jury. This decision is a net loss to minority litigants. Also, we're making jury selection more contentius, and therefore more complex and expensive. |