Trial by Jury Key Supreme Court Cases Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1879). The Court struck down a Virginia law limiting jury service to "all white male persons," as a violation of the equal protection guarantee of the 14th Amendment, though officials used covert discriminatory policies in some areas for many years to follow. Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333 (1966). The case of Sam Sheppard, the Cleveland doctor accused of killing his wife (that later spawned the television series "the Fugitive"), received such widespread publicity excoriating Sheppard and proclaiming his guilt, that the Court found that he did not receive a fair trial and overturned his conviction. For highly-publicized trials, the Justices held that trial courts must go to greater lengths to assure a fair trial, by changing the venue, sequestering the jury, and preventing the leaking of leads and gossip to the public, in order to find unbiased jurors and prevent them from being affected by outside opinions. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968). The Court applied the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process guarantees to the states, and overturned Duncan’s conviction. He had been given a sixty day prison sentence for a misdemeanor battery charge without the benefit of a jury trial, because the Louisiana Constitution required juries only in capital cases or cases in which imprisonment or hard labor could be imposed. Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U.S. 356, and Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404 (1972). The Court found that the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a jury trial, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, does not require that the jury's vote be unanimous. Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522 (1975). The Court found "affirmative registration" for women for jury service, in which they were not automatically included on jury lists unless they registered, to be a violation of the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a jury drawn from a cross section of the community. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986). The Supreme Court pronounced peremptory challenges based solely on race to be unconstitutional. In this case against a black man charged with burglary and receipt of stolen goods, all four black potential jurors were dismissed by the prosecution, and Batson was found guilty. The Supreme Court ruled that this was a violation of his 6th and 14th Amendment rights to a jury drawn from a cross section of the community and equal protection of the law. Lockhart v. McCree, 476 U.S. 162 (1986). The Court found that excluding people who are unwilling under any circumstances to impose the death penalty during sentencing did not violate a defendant's Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, as long as the remaining jurors are drawn from a fair cross-section of the community. >>Article: The Citizen's Jury >>Books (includes article's bibliography) >>Key Supreme Court Cases >>Websites Resources Home | Resources: Trial by Jury Home