batson v. kentucky
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Colorado Supreme Court adopts scaled-back racial bias rule after 2.5 years of consideration
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The Colorado Supreme Court on Thursday adopted a long-stalled rule aimed at curbing racial discrimination in jury selection, which differs in substantial ways from the proposal its criminal rules committee forwarded more than two years ago. Prominently, the court removed the original default prohibition on lawyers removing jurors of color for certain reasons that, while not explicitly…
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‘Weird,’ ‘confusing,’ ‘disheartening’: Colorado Supreme Court under fire over racial bias proposal
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Several members of a Colorado Supreme Court advisory committee aired their frustration last week after the justices announced they had reached consensus on a proposal to combat racial discrimination in jury selection — by substantially watering down the protections built into the original draft. The Supreme Court took the unusual step of asking its Rules of…
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Colorado Supreme Court reaches consensus on stalled racial bias rule, with heavy revisions
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The Colorado Supreme Court notified a small group of lawyers and judges last week that it has tentatively agreed on a new rule addressing racial bias in jury selection for criminal trials, breaking its yearslong silence on the proposed reform. Most prominently, the court’s proposed path forward would no longer designate certain justifications for removing…
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Appeals court rejects allegations of racial discrimination in jury selection in 2 cases
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Colorado’s second-highest court ruled last month that prosecutors in two cases did not engage in intentional racial discrimination when they dismissed two women of color from the jury pool. Under longstanding U.S. Supreme Court precedent, purposeful race-based discrimination in jury selection is unconstitutional. Normally, parties may exercise “peremptory strikes” of jurors without citing a reason.…
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Appeals court upholds dismissal of Black juror for negative experiences with police
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Colorado’s second-highest court agreed earlier this month that an Arapahoe County prosecutor did not remove a Black woman from a jury because of her race, even though she had explicitly attributed her prior negative interactions with police to “the color of my skin.” Under longstanding U.S. Supreme Court precedent, intentional race-based discrimination in jury selection…
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Colorado Supreme Court lays out frustration with current method of ID’ing racial bias in jury selection
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Colorado’s justices escalated their frustration on Monday with the existing framework for evaluating race-motivated dismissals of jurors in criminal trials, months after the state Supreme Court also invited lawmakers to do their part to fix the problem. Under longstanding U.S. Supreme Court precedent, intentional race-based discrimination in jury selection is unconstitutional. Normally, parties may exercise…
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Is Colorado’s Supreme Court about to kill implicit bias reform?
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Last year, the Colorado Supreme Court indicated it would first decide a handful of pending cases alleging racial bias in jury selection before it took action on a proposal that would make it more difficult for prosecutors to remove jurors of color for reasons that, while not explicitly racial, nonetheless correlate to race. On Monday,…
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Colorado justices nudge legislature to take action to combat racial bias in jury selection
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In a major pair of decisions on Monday, the Colorado Supreme Court simultaneously found Arapahoe County prosecutors provided non-racial reasons for removing jurors of color from two criminal trials, but that judges failed to adequately determine whether those reasons were credible. Further, three of the seven justices, with seeming support from the other four, suggested…
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Colorado justices vent about difficulty of evaluating racial bias in jury selection
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Members of the Colorado Supreme Court last week expressed frustration with the difficulties of pinpointing unconstitutional racial bias in jury selection, especially when relatively few details are available after the fact about what happened at trial. “We’re trying to guess what’s in someone’s mind, someone’s heart, even when they may not be aware of it,…
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Appeals court warns that prosecutor’s comments about her, victims’ race were improper
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Colorado’s second-highest court on Thursday agreed an Arapahoe County prosecutor did not intentionally dismiss a Hispanic juror for race-based reasons, but her attempt to justify the removal by citing her own race and the race of the victims was improper. A three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals noted the prosecutor, in dismissing the Hispanic…