SHREVEPORT, La. – A class action lawsuit filed Thursday alleges that the Caddo Parish District Attorney’s Office has intentionally and unconstitutionally manipulated jury selection to limit the number of African-Americans selected to serve on juries in criminal trials.

By using peremptory challenges of potential jurors, the District Attorney’s Office has blocked African-Americans from juries at over three times the rate of people who were not African-American, according to the lawsuit filed by the New Orleans office of the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center.

According to a study of the records of 332 criminal cases between Jan. 28, 2003, and Dec. 5, 2012, the District Attorney’s Office barred 46 percent of qualified African-Americans from juries and only 15 percent of all other races. “The District Attorney’s racially discriminatory custom, usage and/or policy violates the rights guaranteed to Plaintiffs by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” the lawsuit states.

Challenges of African-American jurors skyrocketed in cases where an African-American was charged with crime. “When the defendant was white, the District Attorney was 2.6 times more likely to strike a black juror than he was to strike a white juror. When the defendant was black, the District Attorney was 5.7 times more likely to strike a black juror than he was to strike a white juror.”

The reason for the discriminatory jury strikes is clear. The lawsuit states, “The District Attorney’s custom of racially discriminatory jury selection to empanel predominately white criminal trial juries serves the Defendant’s purpose of disproportionately punishing African-Americans charged with criminal offenses.” The result, the lawsuit charges, is “racially skewed justice.”

“Everyone knows what’s going on in Caddo Parish’s criminal courtrooms: citizens of all races enter for jury duty, but the African-Americans are shown the exit by the District Attorney’s peremptory challenges,” said Jim Craig, Co-Director of the MacArthur Justice Center’s office in New Orleans. “But it took the comprehensive study of 10 years of jury trials to make it clear. This is just proving the obvious.”

“Because no other plausible explanation accounts for the disparity between the District Attorney’s peremptory challenges against African-American jurors and those against white jurors, the only statistically significant factor explaining the disparity is the race of the juror,” the lawsuit states. The lawsuit explains that state statutes set a low bar for approval of peremptory challenges.

The lawsuit points out that jury service is one of the foundations of American democracy. “One of the most significant privileges of self-government – second only to the right to vote – is the right to serve on a jury. The United States Supreme Court has held that ‘with the exception of voting, for most citizens the honor and privilege of jury duty is their most significant opportunity to participate in the democratic process.’”

“Keeping African-Americans out of the jury box is just as unconstitutional as barring them from the ballot box,” Craig said. “The jury selection system in Caddo has turned African-Americans into second-class citizens.”

The lawsuit requests an injunction “forbidding the use of this custom, usage and/or policy now and in the future” and declaration that state laws allowing race-based jury selection are unconstitutional. It also seeks an order that attorneys and investigators in the District Attorney’s office receive training to prevent these discriminatory practices in the future.

The current interim District Attorney, Dale Cox, is named as the Defendant in his official capacity. “Naming the sitting District Attorney is a procedural requirement of the Federal case law,” Craig said. “As we’ve said many times, this case is not about one man. There’s a culture in the office that needs to be changed, no matter who is at the top.”

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About the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center

The Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center is a public interest law firm founded by the family of J. Roderick MacArthur to advocate for human rights and social justice through litigation. The MacArthur Justice Center became part of Northwestern University School of Law’s Bluhm Legal Clinic in 2006. The MacArthur Justice Center opened an office in New Orleans in 2013 and an office at the University of Mississippi School of Law in 2014. www.MacArthurJusticeCenter.org