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Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Courts - "Barring Hunters From Jury Panel Violates 'Batson,' N.Y. Judge Finds" What about Indiana?

Daniel Wise writes today in the New York Law Journal in a story that begins:

The same U.S. Supreme Court precedent that bars discrimination against potential jurors due to their race, gender or ethnic background can be used to protect the right of hunters to serve on juries, an upstate New York judge has suggested.

Sullivan County Judge Frank LaBuda called a halt to the trial of a Long Island hunter charged with assault for shooting another hunter after the defense attorney issued peremptory challenges to six of 35 potential jurors who had identified themselves as hunters.

LaBuda concluded that the challenges amounted to a "systematic exclusion" of hunters that ran afoul of the Supreme Court's 1988 ruling in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, to which he repeatedly referred in his oral ruling ordering a mistrial in the case.

What about Indiana? IU Law Professor Joel Schumm's response:
"I suspect the Indiana Supreme Court would not agree." He cites a 2006 Supreme Court opinion by Justice Boehm, Highler v. State, that begins:
"We hold that the use of a peremptory challenge to strike a juror because of the juror’s race, gender or religious affiliation violates the juror’s right to equal protection of the laws. The juror’s affiliation is to be distinguished from religious beliefs that prevent the juror from following the law. The juror’s occupation, to the extent it may indicate a predisposition and is not a pretext, is a permissible ground for a peremptory strike."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 7, 2010 03:01 PM
Posted to Courts in general