Batson v. Kentucky

61 Analyses of this case by attorneys

  1. Implications of 'Students for Fair Admissions' for Private Employers

    Katten Muchin Rosenman LLPCatherine O'BrienJuly 12, 2023

    “the decision . . . does not address employer efforts to foster diverse and inclusive workforces or to engage the talents of all qualified workers, regardless of their background. It remains lawful for employers to implement diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programs that seek to ensure workers of all backgrounds are afforded equal opportunity in the workplace.”[10]That said, challenges to DEI initiatives continue to pose a concern for companies,[11] and the SFFA decision may increase the number of challenges. The SFFA decision has brought new attention to race-based decision-making, underscoring the importance for employers to stay informed about this evolving legal landscape. Employers who maintain or introduce their own DEI initiatives should seek guidance when questions arise.[1] Plessy, 163 U.S. 537 (1896); Brown, 349 US 294 (1955).[2] Brown, 349 U.S. 294 (schools); Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971) (education); Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986) (peremptory jury strikes); Hernandez v. Texas, 347 US 475 (1954) (composition of juries); New Orleans City Park Improvement Assn. v. Detiege, 358 US 54 (1958) (public parks); Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. Dawson, 350 US 877 (1955) (beaches and bathhouses); Holmes v. Atlanta, 350 US 879 (1955) (golf courses); Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948) (housing covenants); Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886) (commercial property); Gayle v. Browder, 352 U.S. 903 (1956) (busing); and Bailey v. Patterson, 369 U.S. 31 (1962) (transportation facilities).[3] Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. ___, *15 (2023).[4] Id. at *39.[5] Id. at *35 (citing Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U.S. 899 (1996)).[6] Id. at *66 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting).[7] Id. at *26 (Jackson, J., dissenting).[8] Id. at *4 (Gorsuch, J., concurring).[9] Id. (quoting Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 416, n.19 (1978) (opinion concurring in judgment in part and disse

  2. Caution Signs Line the Road to Wider ChatGPT Adoption

    Esquire Deposition Solutions, LLCMay 23, 2023

    echnology service that captures and responds to lawyer queries — suffers a data breach, then bad actors could come into possession of client confidential information or privileged attorney work product, Browning noted.Lawyers should be very careful about the information they reveal when making queries to ChatGPT. There is a real possibility that client confidential information revealed to ChatGPT may no longer be protected by attorney-client privilege.Then there is the “black box” aspect of generative AI: Users do not meaningfully understand how these technologies yield their outputs. They don’t understand the data that is being used, nor do they understand the assumptions that programmers made during development. In the field of law, the outputs of generative AI technologies can be problematic and potentially unlawful.To take just one example, consider jury selection, a critical component of both civil and criminal litigation. In a series of rulings beginning with Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), the U.S. Supreme Court has declared that peremptory challenges to potential jurors cannot be exercised on the basis of the juror’s race, ethnicity, and gender. Litigators using generative AI technologies to select jurors will have a difficult time responding to Batson challenges because of their inability to state with certainty that their juror selection decisions were not influenced by unlawful considerations.It’s Not All Unicorns and RainbowsAnother drawback with ChatGPT, one noted by many lawyers, is that it can be just plain wrong at times. A commonly cited article on SCOTUSblog noted that ChatGPT failed to correctly answer some basic questions regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s work. In fact, it confidently reported several entirely false accounts about leading court decisions and invented a fictional justice “James F. West.”Browning also reminded lawyers that they should treat providers of generative AI technologies the same way they deal with all other vendors used by law fir

  3. Batson Is Back, With Teeth

    Fox Rothschild LLPMarch 4, 2022

    The holding in Batson v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 79 (1986), that racial discrimination has no place in jury selection, continues to generate caselaw. As noted in a prior blog post, the Supreme Court of North Carolina had never summarily reversed a criminal conviction on the basis of a Batson violation.

  4. Noted with Interest: A Sea Change to Peremptory Challenges: The Effects of California’s AB-3070

    Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLPApril 22, 2021

    Others say the law will do more harm than good. Starting on January 1, 2022 for criminal trials and January 1, 2026 for civil trials, judges will no longer assess whether the peremptory was exercised as a result of purposeful discrimination, as held in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986) and People v. Wheeler, 22 Cal. 3d 258 (1978). Instead, the court must consider whether there is a substantial likelihood an objectively reasonable person—defined as one who is aware of unconscious bias and its impact on the justice system—would view the challenge as related to the juror’s race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, or religious affiliation.

  5. New Jury Selection Procedure in California: Is This the End of Peremptory Challenges? Is This the End of Batson?

    Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLPKate WittlakeDecember 4, 2020

    CCP § 226(b). If a party believes the challenge was given for a discriminatory purpose, the court will follow the procedure set out by the United States Supreme Court in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), which requires a prima facie case of discrimination to be made before a party must explain the exclusion of a prospective juror by offering a facially neutral justification for the strike.AB 3070The new statute, which will become Cal. Code of Civ. Proc. § 231.7, gives a party or the trial court the opportunity to challenge opposing counsel’s use of peremptory challenges.

  6. The Ups And Downs (And Up Again?) Of A Batson Challenge

    Fox Rothschild LLPRobert Edmunds Jr.July 31, 2020

    In Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prevents prosecutors in criminal cases from exercising peremptory challenges to excuse prospective jurors solely on account of their race. As illustrated by State v. Campbell COA18-998-2, filed 21 July 2020, application of that 1986 decision is not easy.Campbell was charged with first-degree murder but apparently his trial was not tried capitally (recordation of jury selection is not required in non-capital cases).

  7. 2019: The (Early) Year In Review (Part 2)

    The Public Defender Service for the District of ColumbiaAugust 11, 2019

    JURY ISSUESRight to a Jury TrialMiller v. U.S., 13-CM-628 (decided June 6, 2019) –Holding: Failure to provide a jury trial for a deportable offense was plain error in light of Bado v. U.S., 186 A.3d 1243 (D.C. 2018) (en banc), even if appellant was subject to deportation on other grounds at the time of trial and had no pre-existing right to remain in the U.S. Jury SelectionHaney v. U.S., 17-CF-420 (decided April 25, 2019) –Holding 1: The defense established a prima facie case of discrimination under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), where “the prosecutor used seven out of nine (or 78%) of her peremptory challenges,” including every one of her first six challenges, to strike black jurors, who comprised 39% of the qualified venire, and “used four (or 44%) of her peremptory challenges to strike black males, who constituted only 18% of the venire,” with the result that “no black males served on the jury in a case where the defendant is a black male.” Slip Op. at 12.

  8. Court of appeals approves striking black jurors due to their prior bad experiences with police

    Wisconsin State Public DefenderAugust 7, 2019

    The defendant bears the burden of proving that the DA’s reasons were a pretext for intentional discrimination. Opinion,¶¶7-8 (citing State v. Lamon, 2003 WI 78, ¶34, 262 Wis. 2d 747, 664 N.W.2d 607 and Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986)).Boiled down, the majority accepted the DA’s “race neutral” explanation for striking the black jurors. She said:Both of those individuals expressed having prior bad experiences with the police, and although in the end they indicated they could be fair, they were quite hesitant and seemed to express feelings based upon their personal experiences of not trusting law enforcement and maybe looking more skeptically at law enforcement testimony than other witnesses, and that is the reason they were struck, which is also consistent with Mr. [O.] Opinion ¶3 (noting Mr. O is white).

  9. SCOTUS maintains Batson; DA’s history of striking black jurors matters

    Wisconsin State Public DefenderJune 29, 2019

    The state used five of its six strikes to remove five of those black people from the pool.The Court is careful to say that it “break[s] no new legal ground” in holding that Flowers’ latest conviction was obtained in violation of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79, 97 (1986). This may be reassuring, given the pattern of misconduct here.

  10. The Supreme Court - June 21, 2019

    Dorsey & Whitney LLPJune 21, 2019

    In the sixth trial, the State struck five of the six prospective jurors, and Flowers was convicted. On appeal, Flowers raised a challenge based on Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), the case in which the Court ruled that a State may not discriminate on the basis of race when exercising peremptory challenges against prospective jurors in a criminal trial. A divided Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the conviction.