Deselecting Biased Juries
Critics of peremptory-challenge systems commonly contend that they inevitably inflict inequality harm on many excused persons and should be abolished. Ironically, the Supreme Court fueled this argument with its decision in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), by raising and endorsing the inequality claim sua sponte and then purporting to solve it with an approach that preserved peremptories. But the article shows that something other than inequality harm to excused persons is actually the central problem. The Court in the Batson cases only obliquely confronted it, because constitutional rulings cannot appropriately resolve it. That problem is the harm to disadvantaged litigants when their opponents use peremptories to secure a one-sided jury. The problem can arise often -- whenever a venire is slanted in favor of one of the parties. The advantaged litigant can use peremptories to seat a large group of favorable jurors regardless of how the disadvantaged litigant exercises its peremptories. However, there is a remedy. Peremptory systems reflect the idea that parties acting in their self-interests can help pursue group neutrality on a jury. Similarly, by conferring on litigants a right to stop peremptories at any time, states can enlist them to determine when opposing parties are using peremptories to promote group bias.
Discriminatory and Unfair Practices Against the Indigenous Peoples of Canada in the Selection of Criminal Juries
Indigenous Peoples are overrepresented in all aspects of the Canadian criminal justice system. Most dramatic are their rates of incarceration. One way to potentially reduce conviction rates and the resulting custodial numbers is to make improvements to the fairness and effectiveness of jury selection. For the purposes of this thesis that requires reconsidering the disqualification of the criminally convicted from jury service as well as rethinking the systems that are in place for challenging prospective jurors. The goal of the jury selection process is to seat a representative, independent and impartial body of citizen adjudicators. It is and will always be an imperfect system as are all human ventures. However, the aim of the enterprise remains of fundamental importance to the rendering of just and accurate verdicts. Yet identifying and selecting a group of ideally diverse and fair-minded jurors to sit in judgment is not a simple task. Indeed, the question ultimately becomes not whether the paradigmatic jury can be compiled, but whether the present model of empanelment can be improved upon. My analysis of the governing Canadian jurisprudence suggests that the present jury selection regime is inadequate. That view is further buttressed after considering and comparing the experiences in England and the United States of America on the same issues. In the end, I propose utilizing a more expansive pool of prospective jurors given the significant number of Indigenous Peoples who are presently disqualified from jury service due to their criminal antecedents. Additionally, I argue that challenges for cause need to become more inquisitorial in order to function optimally. Finally, I conclude that peremptory challenges require more judicial oversight as to their use and a reduction of their number achieved through legislative action.
The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice ten years on: Successes and future challenges under the Stockholm Programme. CEPS Paperbacks. June 2010
This book celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) by bringing together the views of key practitioners and policy-makers who have played an outstanding role in thinking about and shaping EU policies on freedom, security and justice. 
 
Ten years ago, the member states transferred competences to the EU for law and policy-making in the fields of immigration, asylum and border controls, and began the transfer process for criminal justice and policing. This decade of European cooperation on AFSJ policies has experienced very dynamic convergence, the enactment of a large body of European law and the setting-up of numerous EU agencies working in these domains. Such dynamism in policy-making has not been without challenges and vulnerabilities, however. As this collective volume shows, the main dilemmas that lie ahead relate to an effective (while more plural) institutional framework under the Treaty of Lisbon, stronger judicial scrutiny through a greater role for national courts and the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, better mechanisms for evaluating and monitoring the implementation of EU AFSJ law and a more solid fundamental rights strategy. The contributions in this volume address the progress achieved so far in these policy areas, identify the challenges for future European cooperation in the AFSJ and put forward possible paths for making more progress in the next generation of the EU’s AFSJ.