AUSTIN, Texas (Legal Newsline) - Courts continue to grapple with the issue of race on juries, as Texas' highest court has found a trial was sullied after the plaintiff's attorney announced a preference for Black women jurors during selection.
The need for race-neutral proceedings invalidates a multimillion-dollar verdict in a wrongful death lawsuit stemming from a fatal accident on Interstate 35 near Salado, the Texas Supreme Court ruled May 12.
The trial court and an intermediate court of appeals saw no problem with the lawyer's declaration that a Black woman was the ideal juror for the lawsuit. But the state Supreme Court disagreed, applying a previous decision reached in a case known as Powers.
"Courts asked to impute impermissible racial motive based on inferences from a race-neutral record should never do so lightly. Any attempt to divine another person's unspoken motives, particularly from a cold record, is fraught with uncertainty," the decision says.
"Most Batson claims, by their very nature, deal in subjective implications and inferences rather than objective bright-line rules. The potential for judicial mistake is high, and courts should approach this unwelcome but required task with humility.
"But in the rare case where the record contains a clear admission of racial preference in jury selection, Powers provides an easily administrable bright-line rule, which we apply today."
The decision in Texas comes seven months after the Washington State Supreme Court ruled for a Black woman who claimed there was a racial bias during her trial. She had sought $3.5 million in damages from a car wreck, but the all-white jury awarded her only $9,200.
A defense lawyer had described her as "combative" and "confrontational."
"These terms evoke the harmful stereotype of an 'angry Black woman,'" Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis wrote. The decision provided a hearing for the plaintiff during which the defendant was required to show a racial bias didn't exist.
The Texas case appears to be the first in the United States in which a preference for an individual from a certain race was explicitly stated.
"Of course, it not the mere expression of a racial preference in jury selection, standing alone, that requires reversal," Justice James Blalock wrote for the majority.
"It is instead the actual strike of a juror on account of race."
The estate of Clark Davis filed suit after a large piece of equipment carried on a trailer struck an overpass. Falling debris crushed Davis, who was in his vehicle.
The case proceeded to trial against one defendant, United Rentals. Plaintiff counsel used five of its allotted six strikes during jury selection - four white males and one Hispanic male.
Focus groups had led plaintiff counsel to believe a Black woman would be their ideal juror, and four ended up on a jury that awarded nearly $2.8 million to the estate from United Rentals.
The case is remanded for a new trial.
"Even if the statement is viewed purely as an attempt to explain the defense's motives, the statement suggests that counsel for the plaintiffs accused defense counsel of improperly striking Black females at least in part to advance his own preference for jurors of one race over jurors of other races," Blalock wrote.
"If counsel for both sides 'knows' based on focus groups or jury consultants that jurors of a certain race are 'good' or 'bad' for one side or the other, then the improper use of racially motivated peremptory strikes is not the only concern.
"A race-conscious jury-selection strategy thus poisons the entire enterprise..."