High Court Upholds Exclusion of Bilingual Jurors
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The Supreme Court ruled today that a prosecutor did not necessarily violate the Constitution by removing people who are fluent in Spanish from a jury in a case against a Hispanic defendant. The Court said a prosecutor’s doubts, based on the prospective jurors’ answers to questions about whether Spanish-speaking jurors would abide by the official English translation of Spanish-language testimony could be a valid explanation for excluding most Hispanic members of the jury pool. The vote in the case was 6 to 3, but there was no majority opinion. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote a plurality opinion that was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Byron R. White and David H. Souter. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor filed a separate concurring opinion that Justice Antonin Scalia joined. The ruling upheld a 1990 decision by New York State’s highest court, the Court of Appeals. Racial Bias Argument Rejected The opinions of Justice Kennedy and Justice O’Connor rejected arguments by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund that exclusion on the basis of language ability is a pretext for the kind of racial discrimination that recent Supreme Court decisions have condemned as violations of the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. More : query.nytimes.com |