Religious Bias In CA Jury Selection Rejected

The Metropolitan News-Enterprise reported yesterday on a continuing jury selection practice controversy in California. Earlier this year, a former Alameda County prosecutor, John Quatman, charged that it was standard practice in the county for prosecutors to use peremptory challenges to exclude Jews from juries in capital cases. One case in which this challenge is being raised is People v. Schmeck. On Thursday, the California Supreme Court rejected the claim in that case (full text of opinion), finding that the prosecution had given valid reasons for challenging two Jewish members of the jury pool on voir dire. The Supreme Court also said that there was no evidence of discrimination because most of the jurors had not even been questioned about their religion, and prosecutors had no other way of determining their religious affiliations. This is not the end of the issue, however. Schmeck’s lawyers are separately pursuing the issue on habeas corpus. They claim that 27 of 29 potential Jewish jurors were stricken in capital cases during the period in which Schmeck tried.