Abstract
This essay advocates that prosecutors’ peremptory strikes should be eliminated in interracial capital cases. The application of the death penalty has a race problem, especially for interracial cases. A conviction is far more likely if the defendant is black and the victim is white. This is due to the fact that in interracial cases, prosecutors utilize peremptory strikes to prevent black jurors from serving on cases in which the defendant is black and the victim is white. This essay is the first to argue that such a system stacks the deck against defendants in interracial capital cases in an unconstitutional way under the Supreme Court’s holding in Turner v. Murray. Thus, peremptory strikes should be eliminated to ameliorate the manifestation of racial discrimination.
Recommended Citation
Daniel Hatoum,
ESSAY: Injustice in Black and White: Eliminating Prosecutors’ Peremptory Strikes in Interracial Death Penalty Cases,
84 Brook. L. Rev.
(2018).
Available at:
https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/blr/vol84/iss1/20
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