Posted on 07/25/2005 3:18:37 PM PDT by toddlintown
A judge's comments in recent months that she would refuse to seat an all-white jury have raised eyebrows at Cook County Criminal Court and questions about whether the judge acted inappropriately.
"Folks, you all know I have a rule; I don't seat all white jurors," Circuit Judge Evelyn Clay said as a jury was being picked to hear a murder trial last month, according to court transcripts.
-snip-
Some lawyers who work at the Criminal Courts Building said they see no problem with a judge taking a stand for diversity on juries. "I see her now as a leader in forward thinking," lawyer Sam Adam Jr. said.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
I don't believe jury selection is the judge's option. He is acting beyond the scope of his authority ... not exactly unheard of in judicial circles.
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. MLKing
Step down from the bench immediately. You are a jack@ss that has no business interpreting the law through those eyes.
no,all white defendents are in deep doo-doo,as well as white victims....
Time to sue the judge for racism.
Justice is blind bigoted.
I don't know this judge's history, so I may be off base, but I'm going to defend her on this one. Our current practice of jury selection is a theater of the absurd. It has become the most important phase of the trial, as attorneys look for anything that may indicate a predisposition towards their opponent's point of view. We have gotten statistical correlation down pretty fine, so this actually works. Note - I am saying that this practice actually works the way lawyers think it does.
Ethnicity does have a fairly strong correlation with a number of views that come up in trials, and so lawyers routinely strike specific ethnicities while trying to claim their rationale is race-neutral. If the judge is trying to stop that practice, more power to her.
I'd prefer a system in which lawyers cannot strike people - just select the jury by lot, and go from there.
Drew Garrett
"I don't know this judge's history..."
The City of Chicago Council of Lawyers finds her "Not Qualified." That's a start. I ask you...when does a judge decide the make-up of a jury?
And remember, this is Cook county... you get to be a judge by who you know, not what you know.
She's not the first white-hater on the bench, though.
What happened to trial by ones peers?
Sounds awfully racist to me. This judge should be impeached, or whatever they have to do to dump her in IL.
Get your facts straight. There were "9 Blacks, 1 Hispanics, 2 Whites."
Tell the judge its Euro American! sarc
She wouldn't even consider Hispanics and an Asian as non-white...
I don't like it...and if it were reversed, Jackson, Sharpton, Farrakhan and all would be picketing her court 24/7...and we all know it.
"Not Qualified" rating, huh?
Yep.
I remember Gordon Liddy claiming during his trial that one of the jurors was found to be unable to speak English. This was of course hushed up, and the press either didn't know or didn't care.
Would she seat an all-black jury? Hmmmm?
Sad but true. This is how we have gotten to juries that make law rather than decide guilt or innocence.
You hit the nail squarely on the head the first swing.
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