Snyder v. Louisiana (2008)
The Supreme Court case Snyder v. Louisiana concerned the level of scrutiny to apply to the prosecutor’s given reason for using peremptory strikes to strike certain members from the prospective jury pool. The petitioner bringing the challenge, a black male, was charged with first-degree murder in the state of Louisiana (Snyder v. Louisiana 474). The voir dire process of jury selection began by initially screening out jurors who did not qualify to serve or those that were unable to serve due to extreme hardship (Snyder v. Louisiana 475). In the next phase of jury selection, 13 potential jurors were chosen at random for further questioning (Snyder v. Louisiana 475). At this time, both the prosecution and the defense had an opportunity to use 12 peremptory strikes to remove potential jurors from the panel (Snyder v. Louisiana 475). In this case, 5 out of the 36 potential jurors were black (Snyder v. Louisiana 475). The prosecutor used all 5 peremptory strikes to remove the black jurors from the panel (Snyder v. Louisiana 476). After the jury was impaneled, the jury found the defendant guilty and sentenced him to death (Snyder v. Louisiana 476).
The petitioner challenged the prosecutor’s use of peremptory strikes to remove all the black jurors from the jury. The underlying question was what level of inquiry a reviewing court should apply when a prosecutor gives a race-neutral reason for using a peremptory strike to remove a juror (Snyder v. Louisiana 477). The Supreme Court found that the prosecutor’s race-neutral explanations, the nervousness of the juror and the potential teaching obligations the juror would miss, were “unconvincing” and establishes prima facie evidence that the prosecutor used peremptory in a prohibited race-biased manner (Snyder v. Louisiana 477). Although the Supreme Court noted that the trial judge’s findings with regards to whether a prosecutor used a peremptory strike for an improper purpose were due great deference, the Court found that under these facts and circumstances, the reasons given were simply pretextual for racial discrimination and could not be sustained.
I disagree with the Supreme Court’s holding in Snyder v. Kentucky because the entire purpose of using a peremptory strike is to discriminate against a juror for one reason or another. It is well-settled that a prosecutor cannot use a peremptory strike to simply eliminate all potential jurors of a particular race consistent with the Equal Protection Clause (Walston 375). However, when the prosecutor provides a race-neutral explanation for striking a potential juror, this explanation should not be questioned or subject to second-guessing by an appellate court.
While the issue of racial bias is salient in the criminal justice system, a jury pool will almost inevitably contain more white jurors than black jurors simply because whites outnumber blacks in this country. A prospective jury pool could have 30 whites and 3 blacks. The prosecutor may have neutral, strategic, and valid reasons for using peremptory strikes to remove the 3 black jurors. What the Snyder decision does is call into question the particular motivations of prosecutors and scrutinizes the strength or weakness of the prosecutor’s reason for using a peremptory strike. The danger with this framework is that a prosecutor’s judgment will always be second-questioned if the defendant is of a certain race, and the jurors of the same race as the defendant are all removed with peremptory strikes. The prosecutor’s race-neutral reasons for using a peremptory strike should be entitled to a presumption of validity and correctness rather than being subject to examination under a microscope.
Works Cited
Snyder v. Louisiana, 552 U.S. 472. Supreme Court of the US (2008). Web. 17 Mar. 2016.
Walston, Jeanette E. “Do Non-Discriminatory Peremptory Strikes Really Exist, or is A
Juror’s Right to Sit on a Jury Denied When the Court Allows the Use of
Peremptory Strikes?” Texas Wesleyan law Review (2011). Web. 17 Mar. 2016.
