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- Title
PEÑA-RODRIGUEZ V. COLORADO: A CRITICAL, BUT INCOMPLETE, STEP IN THE NEVER-ENDING WAR ON RACIAL BIAS.
- Authors
Spiess, Natalie A.
- Abstract
The realization of America's oft-cited promise of equality and justice for all has long been inhibited by the pervasive racism that permeates all aspects of American life. For centuries, courts and legislatures have worked to eliminate racial bias and its crippling effects from the nation's laws and courts. However, one place where racial bias has largely been left to flourish unchecked is within the realm of juries and their deliberations. Until quite recently, jurors nationwide were free to convict criminal defendants with near impunity based solely on prejudicial notions about who a defendant is because of the color of the defendant's skin. Since the nation's earliest days, a legal principle called the "no-impeachment rule" largely barred using the content of jury deliberations to challenge a criminal conviction. In Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado, the Supreme Court finally held that when a criminal defendant's guilty verdict is likely the result of a juror's overt racism, the Sixth Amendment supersedes the no-impeachment rule and allows defendants to challenge the validity of their guilty verdicts using that juror's racist comments. This was a groundbreaking and long overdue ruling. But the ruling was also reserved, modest, and incomplete. This Case Comment first argues that the Supreme Court correctly decided Peña-Rodriguez. Statistics and the experiences of people of color show that racial bias within the criminal justice system is a massive, towering, and disruptive force. These same things also show that existing safeguards designed to protect criminal defendants from racism are exceptionally ineffective and that the critical importance of attacking racism from all angles ranks paramount to the policy goals underlying a strict no-impeachment rule. However, this Comment also argues that the Court's decision in Peña-Rodriguez will be largely meaningless without a corresponding mechanism that puts jurors on notice about the consequences of using racism to convict criminal defendants. To best maximize the impact of the no-impeachment rule's new racial bias exception, the exception should be coupled with jury instructions that let all within the courtroom know that basing a criminal conviction on racism is both forbidden and grounds for challenging a verdict.
- Subjects
UNITED States; PENA-Rodriguez v. Colorado (Supreme Court case); RACISM; JUROR bias; GUILT (Law); PREJUDICES; VERDICTS; DISSENTING opinions (Law); ATTITUDES of U.S. Supreme Court justices; ACTIONS &; defenses (Law)
- Publication
Denver Law Review, 2018, Vol 95, Issue 3, p809
- ISSN
2469-6463
- Publication type
Article