Tag: jury selection
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‘Mental gymnastics’: Lawyers, judge dissect Colorado Supreme Court’s racial bias rule for jury selection
Lawyers from the prosecution and defense communities, along with a trial judge, attempted on Thursday to demystify a recent rule change addressing racial discrimination in criminal jury selection, with some head-scratching about what the Colorado Supreme Court had actually done. “The proposal initially was not to clarify a complicated area of law, but was an…
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Judges speak about mentorship and bench trials, federal court revises jury selection protocol | COURT CRAWL
Welcome to Court Crawl, Colorado Politics’ roundup of news from the third branch of government. Colorado’s judges spoke to lawyers about mentorship and how to approach bench trials, plus the federal trial court made revisions to its plan for randomly selecting jurors across the state. Heard on appeal • The Colorado Supreme Court will decide whether…
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Appeals court finds no discrimination in dismissals of jurors of color across 3 cases
Colorado’s second-highest court recently agreed prosecutors did not unconstitutionally remove jurors of color in three criminal cases for racial reasons. The Court of Appeals encountered significant variation in how the trial judges approached the prosecution’s dismissal of each juror. One judge explained the circumstances at length, one judge gave virtually no explanation and the third…
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Appeals court rejects allegations of racial discrimination in jury selection in 2 cases
Colorado’s second-highest court ruled last month that prosecutors in two cases did not engage in intentional racial discrimination when they dismissed two women of color from the jury pool. Under longstanding U.S. Supreme Court precedent, purposeful race-based discrimination in jury selection is unconstitutional. Normally, parties may exercise “peremptory strikes” of jurors without citing a reason.…
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Appeals court upholds dismissal of Black juror for negative experiences with police
Colorado’s second-highest court agreed earlier this month that an Arapahoe County prosecutor did not remove a Black woman from a jury because of her race, even though she had explicitly attributed her prior negative interactions with police to “the color of my skin.” Under longstanding U.S. Supreme Court precedent, intentional race-based discrimination in jury selection…
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2024 closes period of turnover on Colorado’s bench | YEAR IN REVIEW
New faces, new initiatives and a new judicial discipline process were among the developments in the third branch of government this year. Although much of the public’s focus was on the battle for the White House and Congress, several stories implicating the courts will have reverberations for years to come. Here is a look at…
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Colorado Supreme Court lays out frustration with current method of ID’ing racial bias in jury selection
Colorado’s justices escalated their frustration on Monday with the existing framework for evaluating race-motivated dismissals of jurors in criminal trials, months after the state Supreme Court also invited lawmakers to do their part to fix the problem. Under longstanding U.S. Supreme Court precedent, intentional race-based discrimination in jury selection is unconstitutional. Normally, parties may exercise…
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Find the bias: Chief federal judge, lawyers talk about how to select a jury
For lawyers participating in jury selection in federal court, the key is to identify biased jurors, while also remaining conversational, taking notes, and paying attention to basic details. “It is a very frequent occurrence that I’ve clarified how the juror pronounces his or her name and the attorney gets up there and butchers it because…
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Colorado justices vent about difficulty of evaluating racial bias in jury selection
Members of the Colorado Supreme Court last week expressed frustration with the difficulties of pinpointing unconstitutional racial bias in jury selection, especially when relatively few details are available after the fact about what happened at trial. “We’re trying to guess what’s in someone’s mind, someone’s heart, even when they may not be aware of it,…
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Colorado justices conflicted about using views on police bias to remove jurors of color
For two hours on Tuesday, the Colorado Supreme Court grappled with a question that could significantly affect the composition of juries going forward: If a juror of color, based on her experiences, says that bias in policing exists, would removing that person from the jury pool be tantamount to dismissing her because of her race?…