Keywords
peremptory challenge, sixth amendment, right to a fair trial, individual challenge, jury selection, voir dire
Abstract
An integral part of the jury selection process is the individual challenge, where a party has the privilege to remove potentially biased jurors. There are two forms of the individual challenge: for cause and peremptory. For cause challenges must be based on a legally provable bias, whereas peremptory challenges may be used to remove jurors who possess a bias peculiar to the immediate case, but whose bias is not articulable in terms of a challenge for cause. Given the vague underpinnings and potential abuses of the peremptory challenge, legislatures enforce a limitation on the number of such challenges a party may make. Nonetheless, peremptory challenges can still lead to systematic dismissals based solely on a juror's affiliation with certain, cognizable groups, such as race, sex, ethnicity, and religion. This action undermines the integrity of the sixth amendment's guarantee that juries will represent a fair cross-section of the community. This Note recommends that courts take greater initiative to question a party's motives when it appears that peremptories have been applied discriminatorily.
Recommended Citation
Stephen W. Dicker,
Systematic Exclusion of Cognizable Groups by Use of Peremptory Challenges,
11 Fordham Urb. L.J. 927
(1983).
Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj/vol11/iss4/5