Posted on 12/06/2005 9:14:11 AM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - Arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer said Monday that trial judges deserve the benefit of the doubt in overseeing jury selection in their courtrooms. Lockyer argued in Rice v. Collins that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals should not have overruled the trial judge's decision that the prosecutor had nonracial reasons for dismissing two African-American women as potential jurors.
Supreme Court justices, who did not immediately rule in the case, expressed concern about racial bias in jury selection, but several appeared to support Lockyer's argument.
They also questioned statements by Los Angeles Deputy Federal Public Defender Mark Drozdowski that the prosecutor presented a haphazard catalog of reasons for dismissing the two women that masked racial concerns. Justice Antonin Scalia said he could see the trial judge's point of view.
"It's difficult to see how you can establish the trial court should have come out another way," Scalia said.
In the 1996 case in which Steven Collins was on trial for possession of rock cocaine, the prosecutor initially said gender may have played a role when she excused a single mother and a retired nurse with five grandchildren. After being told she could not use gender as a basis for dismissal, the prosecutor said her decision was due to youthfulness, lack of community ties and the demeanor of one of the women, including eye-rolling unseen by the judge.
Noting that jury selection can be "an instinctive process more than a rational one," Scalia said he was not concerned to see the prosecutor "flounder about" and offer several reasons when asked to explain her decision.
He and other justices also defended the trial judge for giving the prosecutor the benefit of the doubt.
Charles Hobson, an attorney for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento, said he expects the Supreme Court to strike down the 9th Circuit decision. That, he said, would make it easier for prosecutors to defend cases alleging discrimination in jury selections.
I am shocked and outraged to learn that Heather Locklear is intervening in the judicial process. Does she really believe that a few years on Melrose Place qualifies her to opine on subtle issues of jurisprudence?
I don't care if she is a Republican. I still say that Heather should stick to her . . .
What? It's not actress Heather Locklear? It's California Attorney General Bill Lockyer?
Never mind.
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