When Is An All-White Jury Not Okay?

Patti LaBelle's all-white jury

When being judged by a jury of your peers, is it necessary that some of those peers be members of your ethnic or racial group? Hold on, white people, I’m not asking you. You might talk tough on the internet, but if you were the defendant in a trial and you walked in and saw the entire Wu-Tang Clan sitting in the jury box you’d have a freaking conniption. And… it would NEVER happen to you. A white person would never have to face an “all-other” jury. Your opinions on how you’d feel about a situation that would never happen to you matters less to me.

For the rest of us, being judged by zero people from your peer racial or ethnic group is a legitimate possibility. Is that fair? Almost certainly not. Is it presumptively unfair? That’s kind of a different question. Can we presume that 12 white people can’t give a black person a fair trial? Should a judge stop a trial once he sees that a person is about to face a jury devoid of any of her racial peers?

For singer Patti LaBelle, a federal judge decided to hit the reset button and try again. U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison declared a mistrial in a civil suit against LaBelle once he saw that there were no blacks on the jury. Ellison didn’t imply that the lawyers improperly screened blacks out of the jury pool, but he ordered a do-over of jury selection, and both lawyers agreed.

If it was just a case of a black woman in a civil squabble, I’m not sure I would have agreed with Ellison’s call. I guess I’d like to believe in a world where a soul singer could get a fair trial, regardless of the racial makeup of the jury. And even though I know damn well I don’t live in such a world, pop “divas” in civil suits are not exactly the culture war hill I want to die upon.

But when you look at the particulars of LaBelle’s case, it really seems like at least one black person’s views should be represented in the jury room.

LaBelle and some of her bodyguards are in court for something that transpired in a Houston airport in 2011. The ABA Journal reports:

Sponsored

The alleged victim, Richard C. King, admits he had been drinking. However, King says in court filings, he did nothing to provoke a physical attack by LaBelle’s bodyguards that left him mentally disabled due to a traumatic brain injury, the newspaper reports.Lawyers for LaBelle contend King made racial slurs and used profanity. A misdemeanor assault charge against one of her bodyguards over the incident resulted in an acquittal in 2013[.]

Okay… let’s not bury the lead here, LaBelle’s bodyguard was acquitted of criminal wrongdoing. This is a civil trial, this about money, not justice. LaBelle is likely only here because she’s got more money than her bodyguards.

If somebody calls me some names, and then somebody I’ve paid to defend me defends me — legally defends me, according to a criminal court — I would absolutely want some black person, like, around when my “peers” were determining if I owe anybody money.

That’s not to say that I assume LaBelle and her people were right in this case. I don’t know all the facts here. Just because I’m black doesn’t mean that I’m more or less inclined to give LaBelle the benefit of the doubt in any situation involving her bodyguards allegedly beating on a white man.

Continue Reading on Above the Law Redline…

Sponsored