America loves to pretend that race is irrelevant. It would be great if it was, but, unfortunately, as Cornel West wrote, race still matters.

Some folks tried to make a mountain out of a molehill when Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that her background as a Latina had influenced both her public and private life in her now well-known "wise Latina" comments.

Now, a ruling out of a Michigan court has overturned an $18 million wrongful death lawsuit because a judge kept a woman on a jury because she was black.

The judge probably did not act in a legally appropriate manner when he decided to keep the woman on the jury to obtain racial balance, but his sentiment is undeniably correct.



The Detroit Free Press writes:

The court, in a 5-2 decision, threw out the jury award (worth about $18 million with interest) to a Macomb County man, Anthony Pellegrino, whose wife was killed in a shuttle bus accident at Metro Airport in 2003. The majority opinion said the decision to include the juror because of her race was as pernicious as a decision to exclude her because of it [and] was sharply critical of Wayne Circuit Judge Michael Callahan for permitting it. At trial, Callahan said granting a request by defense lawyers to exclude the woman, who was twice widowed and grieving the death of her mother, would be "race-baiting."

"I am, until either removed from the bench ... or ordered to have a new trial, ... going to seek to have this proportional representation on the juries that hear cases in this court," Callahan said.

It seems there is a problem with blacks landing on juries in this country. For example, a 2008 study found that although half the 3,600 people on death row were black or Latino, the death penalty jurors were almost always all white.

Why does that make a difference?




As an African American, a woman, a blind person or a handicapped person, you are bound to have experiences that differ from what is considered the mainstream in this country.

Sotomayor, for example, has personal experience that involve growing up in housing projects. She knows that all people who live there are not bad. She is in fact living proof. As a woman, she has had a different experience in the workplace than a man. Add on that she's a Latina and those factors give her a diverse life experience.

Court cases are supposed to be judged by a jury of your peers. If you are a woman and all the people on the jury are men, they may not understand a certain defense tactic based on your life as a woman. And when are white defendants ever judged by an all black or all Latino jury?

Studies have shown that racially diverse juries deliberate longer, consider a wider variety of perspectives and make fewer factual errors than all-white juries. The New York Times reported that blacks are often struck from death penalty juries in the South and that predominantly black juries are also less likely to impose the death penalty.

In a death penalty case, for example, blacks, may be more skeptical of authority due to their life experiences.

If black jurors have not experienced discrimination firsthand, they probably know of a relative who did. They understand that a person who was not afforded certain opportunities or who grew up in a certain environment may experience problems that turn them to a life of crime.

In addition, long-standing and continually perpetuated stereotypes about minorities in this country may influence a jury's decision. If you grew up without ever knowing any Latinos, you may more easily buy into societal stereotypes about Latinos because those stereotypes are your only experience with Latinos.

We should all be able to reach beyond ourselves and understand others' experiences but it doesn't always work that way.

Racial and sexual balance on juries is a good thing and there are ways to achieve them. The Equal Justice Initiative has proposed several solutions to the problem of non-diverse juries on death row cases, but it seems they can be applied to all cases.


The solutions include:

Enforcing anti-discrimination laws designed to prevent racially biased jury selection, particularly in serious criminal cases and capital cases/

Subjecting prosecutors who repeatedly exclude people from underrepresented groups to fines, penalties, suspension and other consequences to deter the practice.

Holding district attorneys accountable through court monitoring, reporting on the use of peremptory strikes and their voting power.

Strengthening policies and procedures to ensure jurors from underrepresented groups are fully included in jury pools.

These all seem like good ways to start to diversify the nation's jury pools.