Brown v. North Carolina

Background

A man convicted of two first-degree murders was sentenced to death and challenged how the jury was chosen. During jury selection the prosecutor asked questions to find jurors strongly committed to the death penalty and used peremptory strikes to remove several who expressed any uncertainty. The State conceded it could not have removed those people for cause, but it used its limited peremptory strikes instead.

Reasoning

The immediate question was whether the Supreme Court should review the case and whether limits on peremptory strikes apply beyond racial discrimination. The Court declined to take the case, leaving the conviction and sentences in place. Justice O’Connor, in a short opinion, agreed with that action and explained that the recent ruling limiting racially motivated strikes (Batson) is tied to the special history of racial discrimination and does not extend to strikes based on jurors’ views about the death penalty. Justice Brennan, in dissent, argued the Court should have reviewed the case because the prosecutor used peremptory strikes to produce a jury predisposed to impose death, which earlier decisions forbid.

Real world impact

Because the high court refused review, the lower-court result and the death sentences remain in effect for now. The decision leaves unresolved whether Batson’s limits on peremptory strikes apply to nonracial grounds like death-penalty views. Capital defendants, prospective jurors, and prosecutors are affected in jury selection practices while this issue remains unsettled and may be raised again.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice O’Connor emphasized that Batson is a special rule tied to race; Justice Brennan would have reviewed the case to prevent using peremptory strikes to obtain a death-prone jury.