REGIONAL SAMPLING

A U.S. Supreme Court majority has declared the moral ideal by ruling that jurors in civil cases cannot be excluded on the basis of race. ...

The problem is, such a decision goes to the heart of a key element of jury selection the preemptory challenge. That is the process whereby trial attorneys on either side are allowed to excuse a limited number of potential jurors without stated cause.

If the lawyers are forced to justify preemptory challenges by proving they were not made for unacceptable reasons and thus were made for acceptable ones the challenge ceases to be preemptory and instead becomes a challenge for cause. ...

If the ideal of non-exclusion by race or other external factors is found to be incompatible with the practice of preemptory challenge, the latter should be the one to go.

The Paducah Sun