Batson V. Kentucky - Background

Background

The bartle, James Kirkland Batson, was an African American man convicted of burglary and receipt of stolen goods in a Louisville, Kentucky circuit court by a jury composed entirely of white jurors. The key part of the appeal was based on the jury selection, or voir dire phase of the trial. During this phase potential jurors are examined by the Court, the prosecution, and the defense, to determine their competence, willingness, and suitability to hear, deliberate and decide a case put to them to render a verdict. In this particular case, the judge dismissed several potential jurors for various causes. During voir dire, as is the typical court custom, both the prosecution and the defense have a limited number of peremptory challenges, (i.e., accepted on their face, as the right of the party) which are used to excuse any juror for any reason which the particular side believes will help their case.

In the case at issue, the defense peremptorily challenged nine potential jurors and the prosecutor, Joe Gutmann, peremptorily challenged six, including all four black persons, and a jury composed only of white persons was selected. The defense counsel moved to discharge the whole jury on the ground that the prosecutor's removal of the black veniremen violated petitioner's rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to a jury drawn from a cross section of the community, and under the Fourteenth Amendment to equal protection of the laws. Without expressly ruling on petitioner's request for a hearing, the trial judge denied the motion, and the jury ultimately convicted the defendant.

The defendant appealed the conviction to the Kentucky Supreme Court, who affirmed the conviction. That court cited Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202 (1965) and held that a defendant alleging lack of a fair cross section must demonstrate systematic exclusion of a group of jurors from the panel of prospective jurors. That is, the defendant had to show that not just in his case, but as a process, juries in his community were being constructed so as to not represent a cross section of that community. Batson continued his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Certiorari was granted to decide whether petitioner was tried "in violation of constitutional provisions guaranteeing the defendant an impartial jury and a jury composed of persons representing a fair cross section of the community."