Potential Jurors

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court has broadened the right of criminal defendants to object to the use of race in jury selection.The 7-to-2 ruling significantly expanded on a 1986 Supreme Court decision that permitted defendants to object to the prosecution's use of peremptory challenges to exclude members of the defendant's race from a jury.The court yesterday declared in an opinion by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy that the use of racial criteria in the government's selection of a jury is unconstitutional regardless of the race of the defendant or of the excluded jurors.

Jurors watched a 35-minute police surveillance video, a key piece of evidence, as state prosecutors began Thursday to lay out their case against brothers Tremayne and Travers Johnson, accused of setting a pit bull ablaze. Deputy State's Attorney Jennifer Rallo likened the state's case to the pieces of a puzzle, telling jurors they would hear statements from police officers and a friend of the defendants that would corroborate what can be seen in the video. But defense lawyer Andrew Northrup, representing Tremayne Johnson, emphasized that absent from the video is any picture of a crime being committed.

As the jury selection process began in the bribery trial of state Sen. Ulysses S. Currie, the names of potential jurors were removed from their questionnaires before the forms were returned to lawyers. The redacting was done at the request of federal prosecutors — but not for the jurors' safety. It was meant to keep defense lawyers from Googling them before the trial, which is set to begin next week. If that happened, the court's "supervisory control over the jury selection process would, as a practical matter, be obliterated," prosecutors wrote in a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett.

Jury selection began Wednesday in the retrial of Travers and Tremayne Johnson, brothers accused of setting fire to a pit bull, and it was expected to be a challenge given media coverage of the case. Baltimore Circuit Judge Emanuel Brown called a pool of about 80 potential jurors, about 40 more than usual, because he expects many to be disqualified for having previous knowledge of or opinions on the case. A hung jury caused a mistrial in 2011, covered extensively in newspapers and on local television.

The Maryland Court of Appeals turned down yesterday a convicted murderer's request for a new trial, saying that the dismissal of several potential jurors from his case was not racially motivated.The court, in a unanimous ruling, upheld a decision by Prince George's County Circuit Judge James Magruder Rea, who said county state's attorneys had other valid, race-neutral reasons for dismissing the jurors in the case of Peter Donald Harley.Harley was charged with murder and related offenses in the 1991 killing of Timothy Kidd, who was shot in the head when a drug buy went awry in the Nalley Road apartment complex of Washington Heights, said Assistant State Attorney General Gary E. Bair.

In a sweeping ruling on potential juror bias, the state's highest court said yesterday that any defendant is entitled to ask potential jurors if they harbor racial, ethnic or cultural biases that would make them unsuitable for his trial.The details of the case need not involve those prejudices for the defendant to ask would-be jurors about their attitudes, because the goal of the questioning is to flush out potential jurors who may be influenced by their biases, the Court of Appeals said.

Potential jurors for the trial of Northeast High School teacher Laurie S. Cook will answer a questionnaire a week before her November trial, in a move designed to speed jury selection.Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Eugene M. Lerner yesterday granted a defense motion seeking the questionnaire.The defense wanted to query 100 potential jurors on issues of pretrial publicity and sexual child abuse to identify those who feel they cannot put aside what they have heard about the case or their feelings about the charges.

In a sweeping ruling on potential juror bias, the state's highest court said yesterday that any defendant is entitled to ask potential jurors if they harbor racial, ethnic or cultural biases that would make them unsuitable for his trial.The details of the case need not involve those prejudices for the defendant to ask would-be jurors about their attitudes, because the goal of the questioning is to flush out potential jurors who may be influenced by their biases, the Court of Appeals said.

A Baltimore Circuit Court judge has asked a grand jury to examine the public's perception of police officers and suggest how to fix any problems. Judge Audrey J. S. Carrion acted because she was "amazed" at potential jurors' comments about police during jury selection. "There are two diametrically opposed views of the Police Department: either totally trustful or totally distrustful," said Carrion. She gave the grand jury the assignment Jan. 8. Carrion noted that people's perceptions of law officers often depend on their race.

WASHINGTON -- In a prelude to the court-martial of Navy's star quarterback last season, who is accused of raping a female classmate in January, prosecutors and defense attorneys questioned potential jurors about their impartiality, experience with alcohol use and sexual abuse. The military judge, defense attorneys and Navy lawyers eliminated nine of 14 "members" -potential jurors in military courts - because of their perceptions about Lamar Owens' guilt, past relationships with him or the alleged victim, and prior experience with sexual assault.

As the jury selection process began in the bribery trial of state Sen. Ulysses S. Currie, the names of potential jurors were removed from their questionnaires before the forms were returned to lawyers. The redacting was done at the request of federal prosecutors — but not for the jurors' safety. It was meant to keep defense lawyers from Googling them before the trial, which is set to begin next week. If that happened, the court's "supervisory control over the jury selection process would, as a practical matter, be obliterated," prosecutors wrote in a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett.

Jury selection began Monday in the trial of John A. Wagner, a 34-year-old city man accused of killing a Johns Hopkins researcher last year. Wagner is charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing death of 23-year-old Stephen Pitcairn, who police say was robbed at knifepoint as he walked from Penn Station to his home in Charles Village the night of July 25, 2010. The killing angered the city and became a campaign issue in the race for city state's attorney. Baltimore Circuit Judge Charles J. Peters told the jury pool of 130 that he anticipated an eight-day trial that would end about Aug. 17. Choosing a jury proved challenging: More than 80 of those called Monday said they could not serve for that length of time.

For defendants in high-profile criminal hearings, the so-called "perp walk" is one of the more distasteful traditions of American jurisprudence. The news media are alerted to a time and location when the alleged perpetrator will be walked to the courthouse so they can photograph him or her en masse - often in handcuffs and surrounded by police. Defense attorneys don't care for this parade and have argued against it on the grounds not just of public humiliation but of fairness.

Baltimore City courts closed Thursday because of the overnight snowstorm, postponing the start of the trial for two teenagers accused of setting a pit bull puppy on fire. Opening statements had been scheduled to begin Thursday afternoon. A jury of seven women and five men, plus three alternate jurors, was chosen from among 90 potential jurors in a process that took almost all day Wednesday. The biggest issue for jurors will not be whether the puppy, which had to be euthanized, was severely burned.

Two Baltimore men convicted of killing a father at his daughter's " Sweet 16" party four years ago will get a new trial after the state's highest court ruled that a judge misled potential jurors into believing that the suspects should be found guilty. The Maryland Court of Appeals ruling released Friday states that Baltimore Circuit Judge Charles G. Bernstein, during the process to select 12 jurors for the 2007 trial, asked how much credibility the potential jurors gave to television crime show dramas that highlight sometimes fictional, high-tech methods of gathering evidence.

P olice have long complained that Baltimore juries don't believe them, especially when it comes to drug busts, making convictions difficult if not near impossible. Residents, especially in the inner city, have long equated the war on drugs with police harassment. So I was elated to be summoned to jury duty Thursday and join a pool of a little more than 60 people - including a homemaker and a physician, a truck driver and a professor, a store clerk and a student, a rabbi's wife and an assistant high school principal, an unemployed man and a college student - for what appeared to be a routine drug case.

TRENTON, N.J. -- Everyone knows what the prosecutors say happened to Megan Kanka.In the summer of 1994, they say, the 7-year-old girl was lured into the home of a neighbor with a record of sexual offenses against children, where she was raped and strangled. Her body was left in a pile of weeds in a park near her home in Hamilton Township.That story is well-known because her death almost immediately spawned a law in her name in New Jersey, as well as a federal law and laws in other states, aimed at notifying communities of sexual offenders in their midst.

I met someone at a party once, and when he told me where he worked, I asked if he knew this friend of a friend who also worked there. Mike Somebody, I said, an Asian guy. Oh, my new acquaintance tsk-tsked, I don't really see people as one race or another. Oh, of course you don't, so pure is your heart, so blind are you to color. And, I suspect, so totally full of it. And yet, I get where Mr. Kumbaya was coming from: I'm tired of race myself. Sick of talking about it. Attracted to the notion that we're beyond it. But back here in the real world, race remains a factor.