In two rulings, NC Supreme Court finds no racial discrimination in jury selection
The North Carolina Supreme Court last week issued two rulings involving alleged racial discrimination in jury selection.
The opinions come after a Democratic-majority state Supreme Court issued landmark rulings on striking Black people from serving on a jury because of their race, known as a Batson violation. In 2020 the justices gave lower courts guidance on how to better assess claims of racial discrimination in jury selection, becoming the last Supreme Court in the South to find a Batson violation.
Court-watchers were worried the high court’s rightward shift following last year’s elections — in which Republicans won two seats, flipping the court to a 5-2 Republican majority — would mean a return to the status quo on enforcing the precedent set in the U.S. Supreme Court case Batson v. Kentucky.
Those concerns now appear well-founded after a pair of rulings issued last Thursday by the court. In both instances the majority affirmed lower court’s rulings that there was no racial discrimination in jury selection.
https://ncnewsline.com/2023/04/10/in-two-rulings-nc-supreme-court-finds-no-racial-discrimination-in-jury-selection/
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