1 Jan 1986 Jahr - Batson v. Kentucky

Beschreibung:

A prosecutor's use of peremptory challenge in a criminal case—the dismissal of jurors without stating a valid cause for doing so—may not be used to exclude jurors based solely on their race. The Court ruled that this practice violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case gave rise to the term Batson challenge, an objection to a peremptory challenge based on the standard established by the Supreme Court's decision in this case. This decision overturned Swain v. Alabama.

Even so, this is not a perfect solution. To dismiss a Batson challenge a prosecutor simply has to come up with any reason besides race that rationalizes their peremptory strikes, and in many cases this isn't difficult to do.