Equal Justice Initiative

Update: Civil rights leaders, community organizations, and policymakers are responding to EJI's report calling for enforcement of anti-discrimination law in jury selection.

Nearly 135 years after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to eliminate racial discrimination in jury selection, people of color continue to be excluded from jury service because of their race, especially in serious criminal trials and death penalty cases. EJI on June 1, 2010, released a new report, “Illegal Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection: A Continuing Legacy,” which is the most comprehensive study of racial bias in jury selection since the United States Supreme Court tried to limit the practice in Batson v. Kentucky in 1986.

EJI director Bryan Stevenson discussed EJI's new study on illegal racial discrimination i jury selection on NPR's All Things Considered today. Mr. Stevenson told NPR's Guy Raz that African Americans have been excluded from juries throughout the South "because they're too old at 43, because they're too young at 28, while other white jurors much older are being accepted, and other white jurors much younger are being accepted. ... We've had jurors excluded because they were in an interracial marriage or had a biracial son." Mr.

Bryan Stevenson discussed the problem of continuing racial bias in jury selection and the solutions proposed in EJI's new report with Roland Martin on today's episode of The Tom Joyner Morning Show.

Audio: The Tom Joyner Morning Show

NPR's Michelle Martin interviewed EJI director Bryan Stevenson and excluded juror Brenda Greene on the program Tell Me More. Mr. Stevenson and Ms. Greene discussed how being excluded from jury service because of race humiliates and deprives African Americans in the South of their right to fully participate in civic life.

Citing EJI's new study documenting the ongoing problem of race bias in jury selection, the New York Times Editorial Board today called on state and federal authorities to take an active role in ending this illegal practice.

The release of EJI's new report, Illegal Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection: A Continuing Legacy, was the subject of a prominent New York Times article today. The Times reported that "the practice of excluding blacks and other minorities from Southern juries remains widespread and, according to defense lawyers and a new study by the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit human rights and legal services organization in Montgomery, Ala., largely unchecked."

On September 4, 2009, the Alabama Supreme Court reversed the conviction and sentence imposed on Marsha Colby, who was convicted of capital murder after giving birth to what doctors believe was a stillborn baby.

EJI client Earl McGahee, who is African American, was tried by an all-white jury in a county where the African American population was over 55%. The prosecutor excluded all of the African Americans from jury service based on their race and what he characterized as their "low intelligence." After two decades spent challenging the race discrimination in this case, EJI won relief for Mr. McGahee yesterday when the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed his capital murder conviction because the prosecutor engaged in illegal racial discrimination during jury selection.

The Equal Justice Initiative has recently undertaken a major effort to challenge racial bias in jury selection throughout the United States. In communities across America, racial minorities are significantly underrepresented on criminal trial juries as a result of jury selection procedures that are racially biased and discriminatory. Although federal law in this area is well-established, because of the inherently difficult task of proving exclusion of racial minorities from jury service, there is still much progress to be made in this area.