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SCOTUSblog reports:
A Colorado man who was required to register as a sex offender after being convicted of unlawful sexual contact with two teenage girls will get a shot at a new trial, a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled today. Miguel Peña-Rodriguez had asked a state trial court for a new trial after two jurors told his lawyers that a third juror had made racially biased remarks about Peña-Rodriguez and his main witness, who are both Hispanic. But the state trial court rejected Peña-Rodriguez's request, citing a state evidentiary rule that generally bars jurors from testifying about statements made during deliberations that might call the verdict into question. In a major ruling on juror bias and fair trials, the Supreme Court reversed that holding by a vote of 5-3 and sent Peña-Rodriguez's case back to the lower courts for them to consider the two jurors' testimony for the first time.
Supreme Court's decision in Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado.
Also at Reuters, NYT, NPR, USA Today, and Bloomberg.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday March 08 2017, @09:06PM (3 children)
There's quite reasonable quantities of evidence that every major step of the criminal justice process in the US suffers a small-to-moderate racial bias, from investigations [tandfonline.com], to arrests [jstor.org](paywalled), to prosocutorial discretion [jstor.org], to (mock) sentencing [apa.org], even exoneration of wrongful conviction [nytimes.com].
And that's awful. When all the layers of difference start adding up, the injustice adds up. And you naturally want a window into the decision-making processes that lead to that injustice, and a way to correct for it. But the case that Florida's government is making is legitimate too: you don't want the reasoning of a jury to be a question of an appeal.
I wish I had a good answer, and for once in my overconfident life, I see a Supreme Court decision where I pity the justices for having to decide.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08 2017, @09:21PM (2 children)
Humans are naturally tribal. It's baked into our DNA such that we have to consciously go out of our way to compensate. You can pretend you are non-biased until the cows come home, but in the end your brain is likely lying to you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08 2017, @09:49PM
You can do more than pretend.
You can actively work to counter your subconscious biases, when you know about them and care about doing the right thing.
But when you are tried, or angry, or scared your brain runs on autopilot and your subconscious biases rule. So try not to end up in situations where that happens to you.
However, somebody (like the juror in question) who is willing to brag about their biases doesn't even have a hope of controlling them, because they are fully conscious biases that they embrace.
We can't get to perfect, because people aren't perfect. But we can do better than we have been.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday March 08 2017, @09:50PM
I don't purport to be unbiased. I just firmly belief that biases in a justice system are inherently unjust and must be combated for the future of our country and our species.
You can never live in an ideal world, but you can always work for a better world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08 2017, @09:19PM (3 children)
If you don't talk about your racial bias, nobody will ever have to know. You know he's guilty, why let your (relevant) bias give him a retrial?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday March 08 2017, @09:44PM (2 children)
Because if you don't talk about your racial bias, then you can't use that to convince others of your racially-biased opinion. Of course, it doesn't work in all groups; in some groups, talking about your racial bias will get you ostracized, but in other groups it earns you agreement and then you can use that to justify your (erroneous) conclusions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08 2017, @09:58PM (1 child)
"He looks guilty. Didn't you see him (shifting in his chair/not looking the person in the face/stammering/whatever)?"
"Her alibi didn't sound very convincing to me."
"He just looks guilty."
"She's guilty, I just know it."
It's easy to allude to racist reasoning without outright saying it. And even if one doesn't acknowledge it in any way, hidden racism will have a major factor. A person can think "Of course she's innocent, there is no way a white/black/Asian/Hispanic/etc person would ever be capable of doing that" and never say it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @07:27AM
I think you assume that racism has a goal. Generally people aren't racist because they like racism, and probably almost as rarely they don't aim to hurt those people themselves, they just "honestly" think these people are bad, evil, lazy, they just dislike/hate them, ...
Racism rarely is about an evil mastermind, for which your "plan" would apply.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday March 08 2017, @09:25PM (14 children)
In other news, the output of a decent chunk of the entire judicial system came to a screeching halt when somebody pointed out everyone is biased about everything.
Interesting timing as I just recently did my first jury duty (didn't get on the jury, then got dismissed).
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by ikanreed on Wednesday March 08 2017, @09:59PM (4 children)
Erm... no?
As my above post describes, I'm not sure what an ideal approach to this would be, but the idea of removing bias has been a staple of our justice system since far before it was imported from England.
The idea of Jurors being removed if they had existing biases(not racial biases, personal ones) about the defendant is centuries old, as is judges recusing themselves for biases. The very idea of precedent is basically a way of minimizing the influence of individual biases on decisions. So are written laws for that matter. In fact, there's a lot of ways in which the very history of justice systems are of battles against specific biases.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Wednesday March 08 2017, @10:41PM (3 children)
They already grill the jury with various questions designed to uncover biases that are directly harmful to their arguments. I'm not yet convinced that the whole case should be overturned because the lawyers didn't perform their job flawlessly. If this single guy on the jury managed to sway the entire decision with his views, I'm looking at 11 other people who also bear some fault.
Being biased doesn't necessarily equal the decision was wrong and be retried. Or is someone who says they can set their bias aside and render a fair verdict always wrong? It's all about where you set the bar.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08 2017, @11:24PM (2 children)
This is a SCOTUS case, so it isn't just about this guy.
If there wasn't a substantial effect on the decision, then the re-trial will find the same result. If there was a substantial effect, then the guy should be entitled to a fair trial.
If it were my trial and it has one juror that is willing to declare me guilty based on my race and ignore witness testimony for the same reason, then that is still an intolerable amount. Where would you set your bar?
(Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Thursday March 09 2017, @06:22AM
I'd be setting my bar in a completely different, and legal place, compared to where Miguel set his bar.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday March 09 2017, @07:03PM
If there wasn't a substantial effect on the decision, then the re-trial will find the same result.
After wasting the taxpayers and parties involved a lot of time and money.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Touché) by bob_super on Wednesday March 08 2017, @10:11PM (2 children)
> In other news, the output of a decent chunk of the entire judicial system came to a screeching halt when somebody pointed out everyone is biased about everything.
Good!
This way, only cases where clear evidence overwhelms any taint from bias can get through.
Mission accomplished.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @02:52PM (1 child)
You'll be happy to hear that OJ is up for release, and Casey Anthony has a hot new interview out.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday March 09 2017, @05:25PM
Didn't they have the evidence in the OJ case, but the jury was ... distracted?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08 2017, @10:13PM (5 children)
They know that and that's why the selection process involves excusing jurors including some that don't require cause.
The problem is when people lie about their prejudices to get onto a case.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday March 08 2017, @10:49PM (4 children)
The problem is when people lie about their prejudices to get onto a case.
Or when you know that telling the truth will definitely get you thrown off the jury. I was waiting for them to ask us whether anybody had heard of jury nullification before.
This was a civil case so I can't imagine I would've come up with any excuse to exercise it, but I was still wondering how I would answer the question, being under oath and all. They never asked, I assume because they know that name-dropping it would've resulted in about half the potential jurors googling the term at the first opportunity :)
Back in the day judges got suuuuuper pissed if the jury tried to think for itself.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08 2017, @11:22PM (2 children)
No, they get sick of people like you disrespecting their authority.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08 2017, @11:30PM
http://fija.org/ [fija.org]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/08/07/rethinking-jury-nullification/ [washingtonpost.com]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday March 09 2017, @06:49PM
Thanks, Cartman.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday March 09 2017, @06:19AM
The problem with jury nullification is that it is a two edged sword. Too often it has been used to acquit KKK members of murder as obviously a law that makes lynching black people murder is a law that deserves nullification.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08 2017, @11:17PM (2 children)
Societies are moving away from violently imposed government fiat and toward a paradigm of voluntary private contracts. "Unlawful sexual contact" won't exist and non-consensual sexual contact will be just another breach of contract that the courts can deal with easily. Without governments interfering, people won't have guns held to their heads and won't be forced to do things against their will.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08 2017, @11:48PM (1 child)
What courts? Courts are part of the government. Also what contract? I really doubt anyone who do non-consensual sexual contact is going to sign a contract with his/her victims.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08 2017, @11:58PM
He's trying not to make sense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @01:15AM
We found your mexican rapist. He's in Colorado.
Can we let the lettuce pickers back in now?