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Why Black Defendants Don’t Get Judged By A Jury Of Their Peers

WUNC | By Anita Rao,
Kaia Findlay
Published August 20, 2020 at 11:59 AM EDT
Criminal defendants are entitled to a trial by a jury of their peers. But prosecutors remove Black jurors from the jury more than twice as often than white jurors, according to a Michigan State University study.
Criminal defendants are entitled to a trial by a jury of their peers. But prosecutors remove Black jurors from the jury more than twice as often than white jurors, according to a Michigan State University study.
Criminal defendants are entitled to a trial by a jury of their peers. But prosecutors remove Black jurors from the jury more than twice as often than white jurors, according to a Michigan State University study.
Credit StarsApart/Flickr/CC
Criminal defendants are entitled to a trial by a jury of their peers. But prosecutors remove Black jurors from the jury more than twice as often than white jurors, according to a Michigan State University study.

The North Carolina Supreme Court banned the state from reinstating the death sentence on a Black man named Marcus Robinson last Friday. Robinson was removed from death row in 2012  and sentenced to life without parole after a North Carolina judge found that his trial was influenced by racial discrimination in the jury. At Robinson’s original trial, the prosecution removed half of qualified Black jurors from serving — but only 15% of white jurors. 

Host Anita Rao talks with Emily Coward, project attorney for the Racial Equity Network Project at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government, about racial discrimination in jury selection.

Non-white jury pool members get excluded from juries twice as often as their white counterparts in North Carolina, according to research by Wake Forest University law professors. This discrimination persists despite a 1986 U.S. Supreme Court ruling stating that striking jurors on the basis of race is unconstitutional. The racial inequity of jury selection was the recent topic for a meeting of Gov. Roy Cooper’s Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice. Host Anita Rao talks with Emily Coward, a project attorney for the North Carolina Racial Equity Network Project at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Government. Coward presented her work and statistics to Cooper’s task force Tuesday and shares that information as well as possible solutions.

Copyright 2020 North Carolina Public Radio
Anita Rao
Anita Rao is the host and creator of "Embodied," a live, weekly radio show and seasonal podcast about sex, relationships & health. She's also the managing editor of WUNC's on-demand content. She has traveled the country recording interviews for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department, founded and launched a podcast about millennial feminism in the South, and served as the managing editor and regular host of "The State of Things," North Carolina Public Radio's flagship daily, live talk show. Anita was born in a small coal-mining town in Northeast England but spent most of her life growing up in Iowa and has a fond affection for the Midwest.
See stories by Anita Rao
Kaia Findlay
Kaia Findlay is a producer for The State of Things, WUNC's daily, live talk show. Kaia grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in a household filled with teachers and storytellers. In elementary school, she usually fell asleep listening to recordings of 1950s radio comedy programs. After a semester of writing for her high school newspaper, she decided she hated journalism. While pursuing her bachelor’s in environmental studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, she got talked back into it. Kaia received a master’s degree from the UNC Hussman School of Journalism, where she focused on reporting and science communication. She has published stories with Our State Magazine, Indy Week, and HuffPost. She most recently worked as the manager for a podcast on environmental sustainability and higher education. Her reporting passions include climate and the environment, health and science, food and women’s issues. When not working at WUNC, Kaia goes pebble-wrestling, takes long bike rides, and reads while hammocking.
See stories by Kaia Findlay