Responding to Mccleskey and Batson: The North Carolina Racial Justice Act Confronts Racial Peremptory Challenges in Death Cases

43 Pages Posted: 25 Jan 2012 Last revised: 18 Nov 2012

See all articles by Robert P. Mosteller

Robert P. Mosteller

University of North Carolina School of Law

Date Written: January 24, 2012

Abstract

North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act manifested a clear intent to overcome the restrictions imposed by McCleskey on the use of statistical evidence and to use such evidence to eliminate the impact of race where it is a “significant factor in decisions to seek or impose the death penalty” in pertinent prosecutorial units where a death sentence was imposed. Most innovatively, it gives force to the long established prohibition articulated in Strauder, Swain, and Batson that jurors may not be excluded by racially discriminatory peremptory challenges, stating that the statute’s commands are violated if it is shown that “[r]ace was a significant factor in decisions to exercise peremptory challenges during jury selection.” By cumulating peremptory strike patterns and potential neutral justifications across cases, the statistical analysis provides an opportunity to the court to determine whether racial discrimination in jury selection occurred in death penalty cases.

To enforce its commands, an extensive study was conducted to gather data and to analyze the impact of race on the cases of all those on North Carolina’s death row. The study shows significant racial disparities after a broad range of legitimate potential explanations have been considered for peremptory strikes exercised by the prosecution. The court’s decision in State v. Robinson found the study valid and its results powerful evidence that race played a role prohibited by the RJA in the exercise of peremptory challenges in that case.

As the impact of the 2012 changes in the RJA are resolved, the original RJA remains a model for consideration by other states interested eradicating the improper use of race in peremptory challenges and remedying the failures of McCleskey and Batson. The promise the RJA demonstrated in Robinson remains, for the RJA was not abandoned because the statistical evidence was found flawed or proved unmanageable, nor was the pernicious effect of race found absent. Indeed, the trial court’s judgment in Robinson revealed a deeply troubling pattern of improper use of race in peremptory strikes that it concluded clearly warranted remedy.

Time and future litigation will resolve the legacy of North Carolina’s RJA. It started as an effort to cure the impact of McCleskey and eliminate the weakness of Batson. Hopefully, the tragic lost opportunities of McCleskey will not be repeated.

Suggested Citation

Mosteller, Robert P., Responding to Mccleskey and Batson: The North Carolina Racial Justice Act Confronts Racial Peremptory Challenges in Death Cases (January 24, 2012). Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2012, UNC Legal Studies Research Paper No. 1991477, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1991477

Robert P. Mosteller (Contact Author)

University of North Carolina School of Law ( email )

Van Hecke-Wettach Hall, 160 Ridge Road
CB #3380
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3380
United States

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