April 28, 2005

"Although a long line of U.S. Supreme Court decisions forbids packing juries based on race or gender, lawyers admit they do it frequently," reports Leonard Post in the National Law Journal. One lowlight: Gerry Spence expounds on the ethnic and racial stereotyping he brings to the jury selection process. Why the scarcity of Batson challenges? Often both sides are engaged in the forbidden discrimination; besides which, the regnant philosophy seems to be, "let the judge prove it by reading my mind".