DRUMCALL: End magic acts in the jury box

People of color who arrive for jury duty face prosecutors performing magic tricks, creating jury panels that lack diversity, and thereby stripping the defendant of a “jury of their peers."

By Julieta Smith, Guest columnist

Abracadabra! 

Just like that, with a simple hand gesture, a skilled magician uses cognitive illusion to misdirect the attention of the audience.  The audience is bewildered because they only see the beginning and end of a maneuver. The results defy explanation.  They are left spellbound.  This may sound like an evening in a Las Vegas showroom, but it isn’t. 

Courtesy https://unsplash.com

It’s a typical day in many Louisiana courtrooms where prosecutors perform the make-jurors-of-color-disappear magic trick. 

Louisiana criminal defense attorneys, Vanessa Williams and LaToia Williams-Simon, whose resumes include a combined 30 years of legal experience, with 20 years dedicated to criminal prosecution, criminal defense, and focus on major felony and life without parole cases, have witnessed many of these legal magic shows.  Williams and Simon encourage prospectus jurors of color to bring a few tricks of their own.

Attorney Vanessa Williams

Because it is illegal to prevent jury service solely because of race, some of these legal magicians “challenge on cause instead of color,” says Williams. “They [prosecutors] may ask a juror of color, ‘Can you stay off work 4-5 days?,’ ‘Do you have family members convicted of a crime?,’ ‘How do you feel about the police?,’ or ‘Can you sit in judgment of another?’” These and other such questions are commonly used because they mask discriminatory questions and use the unsuspecting juror’s responses to justify their removal.  Jurors of color should be prepared to answer honestly, yet creatively, and with full knowledge that a good magician can make things disappear.  Let’s consider the final question: “Can you sit in judgment of another?”  The magician wants the juror of color to answer based on their religious beliefs.  Instead, when the juror responds, “I do not believe in judgment but I will follow the law,” delivering an honest, well-packaged response, the juror of color is harder to strike.

Georgia civil litigation attorney, and former prosecutor, Jessica Tehlirian, warns that social media is the latest trick in the magician’s hat.  “If your answer is that you do not hate the police, ensure your social media site is private or reflects your answer.  Some prosecutors will view public records of jurors and use that to have them removed,” Tehlirian says. 

Jurors of color must post with this in mind because jury diversity matters.  Social media posts can aid prosecutors who seek to strategically remove jurors of color. 

Credible research establishes that most Louisiana parishes do not call people of color to serve on juries in their proper numbers.  After this initial problem, people of color who arrive for jury duty face prosecutors performing magic tricks, creating jury panels that lack diversity, thereby stripping the defendant of a “jury of their peers.” If you need proof, look no further than Terren Johnson, a Louisianan defendant and victim of a white-washed jury orchestrated by magic, who now answers to inmate No. 432043.

Let’s keep the Sleight-of-Hand, Trick of the Eye, out of the jury box unless we are using it to make legal magicians disappear.