The Jersey Lawyer

In vacating defendant Oscar Osorio’s conviction on various drug counts, the New Jersey Supreme Court refined the methodology to be applied in determining whether the use of peremptory challenges to exclude jurors was motivated by racial bias.  As the Court noted in State v. Osorio, the right to trial by a fair and impartial jury is one of the rights we hold most dear in our country.  Therefore, courts must be very careful in all cases where there is a risk that racial or ethnic bias may have tainted the jury selection process.  The right to a jury trial is most significant in criminal cases; therefore, anyone charged with a crime in the State of New Jersey should contact a New Jersey criminal defense lawyer for assistance.

In the Osorio case, the defendant was charged with several drug charges.  The case proceeded to trial, and during the jury selection process, the prosecutor used her first six peremptory challenges to strike four African-American and two Hispanic jurors.  At this point, the criminal defense lawyer representing Mr. Osorio objected, and told the trial judge that his client had a right to be tried by a jury of his peers, and that no groups should be excluded.  The trial judge cautioned the prosecutor, but did not restart the jury selection process.  After the caution, the prosecutor used her next peremptory challenge to strike another African-American juror.  At sidebar, the trial judge was satisfied that the prosecutor’s reason for striking the juror was not motivated  by racial bias.  The defendant was convicted at trial of various drug charges and was given an aggregate sentence of seven years imprisonment.

The Appellate Division remanded the case to the trial judge to allow the prosecutor to explain her reasons for excluding the African-American and Hispanic jurors.  During the remand hearing, the prosecution explained their non-race specific non-discriminatory reasons for striking the jurors.  The trial judge was again satisfied with these explanations and upheld the conviction.  The defendant’s attorney disagreed with some of the prosecution’s arguments, and lamented the fact that neither he, nor the Court, had a better recollection of what had transpired during the jury selection process that had taken place three years earlier.  The Appellate Division then reversed the conviction and remanded the case for a new trial.  The State appealed to the Supreme Court of New Jersey.

In applying the New Jersey State Constitution to the circumstances of this case, the Supreme Court determined that the prior three-step rule for determining whether peremptory challenges were racially motivated had to be refined.  Therefore, for a party to show that jurors had been struck, a new three step process must  be followed.  The first step is that the party who is alleging that a peremptory challenge was motivated by racial or ethnic bias must produce sufficient evidence to draw an inference that discrimination has occurred.  Among the factors that a court can look at are whether the prosecutor struck most or all of the members of an identified group from the venire, the prosecutor used a disproportionate number of peremptory challenges against a particular group, and the challenged jurors are the same race as the defendant.  The second step is that the party who is  alleged to have offended the requirement that peremptory challenges be exercised without racial or ethnic bias must satisfy the court that he exercised such peremptory challenges on grounds that were reasonably relevant to the particular case on trial or its parties or witnesses in the particular case.  The third step is that “the trial court must judge the contestant’s prima facie case against the proponent’s rebuttal to determine whether the contestant has carried the ultimate burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the proponent exercised its peremptory challenges on constitutionally-impermissible grounds of presumed group bias.”  In making this final determination, the trial court can look at whether the party exercising the peremptory challenge has applied the proffered reasons even-handedly to all prospective jurors, the overall pattern of the party’s use of peremptory challenges,  and the composition of the jury ultimately selected. 

In the Osorio case, the defendant was a Hispanic male.  When the defendant’s criminal defense lawyer objected to the prosecutor’s use of peremptory challenges, the trial court did not engage in the three step process to determine whether the peremptory challenges were motivated by ethnic or racial bias.  The trial court also did not require the prosecutor to explain the non-discriminatory reasons for all of the peremptory challenges exercised.  This process was not conducted until three years later, when memories had already faded.  Therefore, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided that the only fair resolution would be to vacate the conviction and to remand the case for a new trial. 

Important legal issues often arise during the course of a criminal prosecution.  Therefore, anyone accused of a crime in New Jersey is well served to have a New Jersey criminal defense lawyer representing his or her interests in court.