Jury of Your Peers

Ok, once in a while Ill sneak in something like this:

I sat in on a trial today. Two men are accused of having a shootout in a parking lot, and killing an innocent bystander. Both defendants are black. A woman that I can only assume is the mother of one of the accused was standing outside of the courtroom and as the jury pool entered, a more-than-predominately white group. She commented to someone "isn't' it supposed to be a jury of his peers?"

As a matter of fact it is not, but everyone seems to believe that those words are in the constitution somewhere. I can't even find it in the U.S Code. This isn't the only misconception about the law, the presumption of innocence is not to be found in either the Constitution or the U.S Code (as far as I can find). It is spelled out in Coffin v. United States (1895) and is thus common law.

If this seems strange, think about it this way: In this trial there are two defendants, both black, both gang members, both with corn-rows. Considering these, along with other factors, such as economic status, what do we consider to be peers? Should the jury pool be limited to African Americans? To gang members? To those with corn-rows? To only those that fit all of these characteristics? Granted, the other side of the argument, allowing bilionaire Enron C.E.Os determine the fate of the lower class is equally disturbing. Regardless, for better or worse, neither of these two pillars of our justice system are in the Constitution. The Court, however, has taken steps to limit a lawyer's ability to stack the race of the jury, by outlawing the use of peremptory challenges for the purpose of removing all potential jurors of a given race. And it looks like that ruling is about to be upheld.