More Equal Than Others

“Equal justice under law.” These words, emblazoned over the entrance to the United States Supreme Court in Washington, really represent the “bottom line” of our court system. No matter who you are—Joe Blow or Joe Biernat—if you do the crime, you should get the same time.

In unguarded moments, however, lawyers will tell you what they want is not equal justice but justice for their client. They want to win. And the good trial lawyers know that trials are won or lost during jury selection. If you don’t believe them, just ask O.J. Simpson. His “Dream Team” spent big money to figure out what the ideal jury would look like and did everything they possibly could to get it.

The preemptory challenge or “strike” is the weapon lawyers use to terminate jurors they do not want. Lawyers can strike a juror for almost any reason—except race. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, racially based juror strikes are unconstitutional because they violate a defendant’s right to a bias-free jury and also violate a prospective juror’s right to participate in jury service. If a judge suspects that a lawyer is trying to get rid of a potential juror because of race, then the judge must give the lawyer a chance to produce a “race-neutral” reason for canning the juror. If the judge thinks the reason is bogus, the juror stays.

This is precisely what Judge Harry Crump did in The State of Minnesota v. Reiners. Judge Crump, who quickly realized that the lawyers defending a white man accused of assaulting a Latino man were trying to keep a black woman off the jury simply because she was black, refused to be duped by their flimsy subterfuge. He kept her on the jury. Unfortunately, five of the seven Minnesota Supremes said Judge Crump was wrong, even though they tacitly conceded that the defendant’s “race-neutral” reason was bunk. Justice Alan Page, the court’s lone African-American, offered a well-reasoned dissent (in which he was courageously joined by Justice Russell Anderson), bitterly explaining why, for people of color, “equal justice under law” remains an elusive goal in our justice system.

Cecil John Reiners was charged with first-degree assault after he fractured Jose Padilla’s skull with a two-by-four because he spoke Spanish to one of Reiners’s employees. Reiners’s defense counsel quickly struck an African-American woman whose dad was a former cop. The prosecutors argued that Reiners’s defense lawyers were simply trying to camouflage the real reason for removing her—the color of her skin. Judge Crump was not bamboozled and told the lawyers, “I am going to deny the strike. Keep her on.” Reiners was convicted and sentenced to 91 months in prison.

Normally, appellate courts accept the trial judge’s decision (or in judgespeak, give them “great deference”) on matters such as jury selection, because, after all, he or she is the person who saw the show and knows where the bodies are buried. Instead, the Minnesota Supreme Court, sitting miles and months removed from the Reiners trial, and ignoring reams of judicial precedent, dissed Judge Crump. The court said that once Reiners’s lawyers gave a so-called race-neutral reason for striking the African-American juror, it did not matter if the reason was not “persuasive or even plausible.” In other words, as long as Reiners made up some excuse, even if everyone knew it was bull, that was good enough for Minnesota’s highest court. From there, it was easy for the court to throw out his conviction, because a “tainted” jury rendered it, and to grant Reiners a new trial.

Justice Page’s blistering words cleanly exposed the racist hypocrisy of the supreme court’s decision. “Today’s decision highlights an extremely troublesome trend emerging from this court, one that evinces a hostility towards jurors of color.” Page noted that the Minnesota Supreme Court never second-guessed a trial judge’s call on racially tainted jury strikes until the defendant was white and the victim was not. “It is beyond ironic that, in this case with its Caucasian defendant…we decline to give the trial court any deference whatsoever.”

Justice Page said from the bench what most black and brown folks in the streets have always known—that when it comes to justice, there are two flavors. White people are far more likely to get one and the rest of us get another. And, as long the our state’s highest court issues decisions like State v. Reiners, that ain’t gonna change anytime soon.