Beyond Batson's Scrutiny: A Preliminary Look at Racial Disparities in Prosecutorial Preemptory Strikes Following the Passage of the North Carolina Racial Justice Act
The exercise of peremptory challenges remains the least regulated area of jury selection, largely left to the wisdom or whimsy of each litigator. One need not look back far to find a time when litigators brazenly used peremptory strikes to prevent black citizens from serving on juries. In fact, all-white juries remain common in 2012, even in jurisdictions with a substantial African-American population. Our paper explores whether the North Carolina Racial Justice Act might provide a better tool to mitigate the tenacious influence of race in the selection of juries.