Selwyn Pieters is a leading lawyer and a pretty good guy -- he fights the good fight. Maybe we should get the police to try to find out who is bias when setting up the jury panels? (That is a joke in case it wasn't obvious).
Racial bias runs surprisingly deep
The Toronto Star , June 27, 2009
In a Hamilton courtroom recently, a mistrial was declared - in large part -because too many potential jurors declared themselves to be intrinsicallybiased against the black defendants.
There were no blacks in the jury pool and only two individuals of a visibleminority.
The question posed to them all, at the insistence of a defence lawyer, wasthis: "Would your ability to judge the evidence in this case without bias orprejudice be affected by the fact the accused persons are black men or non-white men?"
Out of a jury pool of 72, 25 were let go in one day because they answered"yes." That left too few to proceed with jury selection."It was very disheartening," says Selwyn Pieters, who represents one of theaccused, Richard Steele - a black man, before the courts not for the firsttime, who also happens to be the son of prominent black activist ValarieSteele.
2 comments:
Nobody likes doing jury duty. I'd probably say just about anything to be given the boot. That question was a big open door for anyone with something better to do than to sit in a hot cramped room with 11 other strangers you don't care to spend a thursday night with.
Agreed. A co-worker of mine recently falsely implied racist views specifically so he could be excused from jury duty... and it worked.
I wouldn't read too much into it...
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