jury selection
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Colorado Supreme Court accepts 3 cases, including on racial bias in jury selection
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The Colorado Supreme Court announced on Monday it will decide whether a person’s belief that racial bias exists in policing is an acceptable reason to remove them from a jury, or whether doing so violates the longstanding prohibition against race discrimination in jury selection. At least three of the court’s seven members must consent to…
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Colorado appeals court finds no discrimination in Jeffco prosecutors’ dismissal of nonwhite jurors
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A Jefferson County judge correctly found no racial discrimination was behind prosecutors’ dismissal of two apparently Hispanic jurors, the state’s second-highest court ruled on Thursday, even though some of the prosecution’s reasons did not match with reality and the judge seemed largely concerned about the “long day” when justifying the women’s removal. Under longstanding U.S.…
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Colorado Supreme Court rules, 5-1, against shifting explanations in race-based juror dismissals
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In accordance with the U.S. Supreme Court’s longstanding prohibition on intentional racial discrimination in jury selection, Colorado’s highest court ruled, 5-1, on Monday that trial judges may not consider after-the-fact explanations for dismissing jurors of color that were not raised at trial. The majority agreed that a new trial is warranted for Theodore Israel Madrid,…
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Justices critical of proposed racial bias rule supported by defense attorneys, trial judges
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Colorado’s Supreme Court justices gave a less-than-enthusiastic reception on Tuesday to a proposed rule that, if enacted, would aim to curb lawyers’ ability to remove people of color from criminal juries for reasons related to race. During a nearly three-hour hearing, prosecutors from across the state uniformly lined up to condemn the suggested change, with…
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Appeals court finds no racial discrimination in Black man’s dismissal from El Paso County jury
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Colorado’s second-highest court on Thursday found no intentional racial discrimination at play when El Paso County prosecutors removed the only Black man from a Black defendant’s jury, after misrepresenting what he actually said during jury selection. Michael Ellis is serving a prison sentence of more than 200 years after a jury convicted him in 2019…
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Appeals court finds no discrimination in prosecutors’ removal of 2 Hispanic jurors
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Colorado’s second-highest court has declined to find Weld County prosecutors engaged in unconstitutional racial discrimination by dismissing two Hispanic men from serving on a Hispanic defendant’s jury. Jurors convicted Javier Hernandez-Martinez in 2018 on three drug distribution charges and he received a four-year prison sentence. On appeal, Hernandez-Martinez argued the prosecution violated the U.S. Supreme…
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10th Circuit finds no discrimination after prosecutor dismissed all Hispanic jurors in trial
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The Denver-based federal appeals court concluded on Monday that a prosecutor who dismissed all the Hispanic members of a jury pool did not violate the longstanding prohibition against intentional racial discrimination in jury selection. A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit declined to grant a new trial for Jack…
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State Supreme Court opens comment period for jury bias proposal
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The Colorado Supreme Court has decided to take up a proposal addressing implicit racial bias in jury selection, opening a public comment period for rules that would curb the use of tactics historically used to exclude jurors of color. Previous efforts to address racial bias have faltered. Last year, the Supreme Court declined to advance…
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Judicial committee secretly debates proposal to address racial bias in jury selection
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A committee of the Colorado Supreme Court met behind closed doors on Friday to discuss two proposals for curtailing the exclusion of people of color from juries based on explicit or implicit racial bias. The renewed effort comes months after legislation to accomplish the same goal died in the legislature in the wake of opposition…
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Colorado’s jury selection process: Does ‘implicit’ bias create injustice?
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In 1985, James Batson, still smarting from a failed appeal in the Kentucky Supreme Court bidding to overturn burglary and stolen goods convictions, brought his case to the United States Supreme Court. He alleged that his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights had been violated by a Kentucky prosecutor. During the jury selection process, Batson and…