Southern counties routinely discriminate on basis of race in jury selection

[Yahoo! News]

The Newsroom - Since 1986, court systems in eight southern states have illegally excluded hundreds of qualified jurors, a new study concludes. The study (pdf), conducted by the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit prisoner advocacy group, compiled a roster of false purportedly race-neutral reasons for disqualifyin would-be black jurors. Among them: appearing to have low intelligence, wearing eyeglasses, chewing gum, having relatives who attended historically black colleges, or being too old (at 43) or too young (at 28) to serve on a jury.

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