Pipkins v. Stewart

Caddo Parish prosecutors struck African-American citizens of Caddo Parish from jury service at 5x the rate of jurors who were not African-American.

Peremptory challenges allow each side in a lawsuit to “strike” potential jurors even if there is no “cause” to challenge their eligibility on grounds of bias or inability to follow the law. Attorneys need not have a specific reason for exercising a peremptory challenge, but where the challenge is based, in whole or in part, on grounds of race, gender, or ethnic origin, the challenge violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

A review of ten years’ worth of criminal trials shows that, when presented with an otherwise qualified black juror, the District Attorney’s Office exercised its discretion to peremptorily strike that juror 46% of the time. By comparison, when presented with an otherwise qualified juror who was not black, the Office exercised its discretion to peremptorily strike the juror only 15% of the time. Over a ten-year period, this pattern of peremptory strikes shows that the District Attorney struck African-American citizens of Caddo Parish from jury service at three times the rate he struck jurors who were not African-American. When controlled for variables, the data shows that Caddo Parish prosecutors struck African-American citizens of Caddo Parish from jury service at five times the rate of jurors who were not African-American.