Focus on Race: North Carolina Jury Study Finds Black Prospective Jurors Were More Than Twice as Likely as Other Races to be Removed by Prosecutors

The recent rul­ing in Hassan Bacote’s Racial Justice Act case in North Carolina has shined a spot­light on a 2012 study on pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al pre­emp­to­ry strikes in North Carolina’s Prosecutorial District 11 that found Black poten­tial jurors were more than twice as like­ly as mem­bers of oth­er races to be struck from juries in cap­i­tal cas­es. The dis­par­i­ties were even greater when specif­i­cal­ly look­ing at Johnston County, one of three coun­ties in District 11: eli­gi­ble Black venire mem­bers were more than four times as like­ly to be struck by the state. 

Professors Barbara O’Brien and Catherine M. Grosso’s exam­i­na­tion of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al pre­emp­to­ry strikes in District 11 found that “[o]ut of 72 strike eli­gi­ble Black venire mem­bers, pros­e­cu­tors struck 51.4% (37/​72), com­pared to only 28.1% of eli­gi­ble venire mem­bers of oth­er races (126/​449).” A logis­tic regres­sion mod­el under­scored the influ­ence of race on pre­emp­to­ry strikes. After con­trol­ling for race-neu­tral fac­tors, eli­gi­ble Black venire mem­bers were more than twice as like­ly to be struck by the state. For their study, the two researchers also cod­ed prof­fered rea­sons for why venire mem­bers were struck. The regres­sion analy­sis revealed that ​“fac­tors such as hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly been accused of a crime or express­ing reser­va­tions about the death penal­ty were strong pre­dic­tors of being struck by the state, but none could account for the effect of race.” 

Their Johnston County analy­sis found sim­i­lar results, with 54.1% of Black venire mem­bers struck, com­pared to 28.5% of eli­gi­ble venire mem­bers of oth­er races. Logistic regres­sion analy­sis found that eli­gi­ble Black mem­bers were more than four times as like­ly to be struck than those of oth­er races. Again, none of the oth­er rea­sons for strik­ing a venire mem­ber was as strong a pre­dic­tor as the race of the poten­tial juror. When nar­row­ing the analy­sis to only cas­es tried by the Johnston County pros­e­cu­tor in Mr. Bacote’s case, District Attorney Gregory C. Butler, the study found eli­gi­ble Black poten­tial jurors were more than 10 times as like­ly to be struck by the state than mem­bers of other races. 

In his order grant­i­ng Racial Justice Act relief to Hasson Bacote in North Carolina, Judge Wayland J. Sermons, Jr. said he was per­suad­ed by these analy­ses, par­tic­u­lar­ly because the ​“pat­terns of dis­crim­i­na­tion against Black venire mem­bers proved pow­er­ful­ly con­sis­tent.” Citing to the study in his rul­ing, Judge Sermons said that ​“In Prosecutorial District 11, pros­e­cu­tors struck qual­i­fied Black venire mem­bers at 1.83 times the rate of all oth­er qual­i­fied venire mem­bers; and in Johnston County, pros­e­cu­tors struck qual­i­fied Black poten­tial jurors at 1.90 times the rate of qual­i­fied non-Black jurors.” With respect to Mr. Butler, and again cit­ing to the study, Judge Sermons not­ed that ​“In those cas­es tried by Mr. Butler, the State struck qual­i­fied Black venire mem­bers 3.48 times high­er than the rate for all oth­er venire mem­bers… In Mr. Bacote’s tri­al, the pros­e­cu­tion struck qual­i­fied Black poten­tial jurors at 3.3 times the rate it struck all oth­er qualified jurors.”