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15 of The 16 Potential Jurors In The Ahmaud Arbery Trial Are White. Problem?

No way this is gonna be an issue on appeal.

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The current makeup of a jury that will rule on a high profile killing has something in common with RBG’s selection of clerks during her time as a Supreme Court justice: there is only one black person.

On February 23rd of this year, Ahmaud Arbery was arguably lynched in broad daylight by two men after a break in his cardio. And folks are understandably outraged. The good news is that a trial is starting soon. The bad news is that the jury looks like it was composed with as minimal notions of fair play and substantial justice as possible. Yes, that was an International Shoe joke.

The trial is taking place in Gylnn County, where 26% of its residents are Black and about 69% of them are White. Considering that 15 of the 16 people chosen to sit on the jury (four of them are alternates) are White, one worries that the math is not mathing correctly. And, it looks like the judge sitting for the case recognizes it too, describing the jury as “appearing to be intentionally discriminatory.” That said, the same judge found that there were valid, non-race reasons why jurors were dismissed.

That said, guess which side is complaining about the jury composition? Because apparently, the defense is worried the jury isn’t White enough!

Read this astute observation from one of the defense attorneys:

“It would appear that White males born in the South, over 40 years of age, without four-year college degrees, sometimes euphemistically known as ‘Bubba’ or ‘Joe Six Pack,’ seem to be significantly underrepresented,” defense attorney Kevin Gough, who represents Bryan, told the court Friday.

“Without meaning to be stereotypical in any way, I do think there is a real question in this case whether that demographic is underrepresented in this jury pool,” Gough added. “And if it is, then we have a problem with that.”

…You see how this is a problem, right? Imagine that a wall street banker was on trial for embezzlement. The jury is ready to go, 12 random people from New York are ready to figure out if he stole from Random Bank, Inc. But wait, defense counsel sees a problem — there are no middle-aged White men from four-year Ivys who also do banking on the jury. This, he claims, could cause his client to be discriminated against because of underrepresentation. The judge should say that’s laughable, right? None of that is reasonable — a jury of your peers shouldn’t mean clones. Not to mention, doesn’t it feel kind of stacked against what should be the interests of justice if you pick jury members who are, because of demographics, more likely to have the same propensities toward committing what your client did in determining if he’s guilty or not?

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The jury’s composition is still important to think about though. Given that Arbery’s lynching was recorded and circulated, it is unsurprising that people who saw what happened were plucked out in the voir dire process. What is concerning is the idea that Black people — by virtue of their blackness — may be too invested in the outcome of the case to judge neutrally. The move may then be to lean harder into selecting White folks to have an unbiased view of the matter. But aren’t White people raced too? Don’t they also have investments in this case — what leeway they have in policing their surroundings, the degree of force, their very status as junior cops?

Now, I am not in the position to say that the defense was successful in hunting their Bubbas down, but it is concerning that this was a voiced interest that no doubt went into their process of selecting the 12 sitting and four alternate jurors (which, again, 15 of the 16 are white). As pressing as it is to make sure that the defendants get a fair trial, I hope that Arbery does too.

Judge Says ‘There Appears To Be Intentional Discrimination’ In Arbery Jury Selection, But Allows Trial To Move Forward With 1 Black Juror [CNN]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. Before that, he wrote columns for an online magazine named The Muse Collaborative under the pen name Knehmo. He endured the great state of Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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