By Paul J. McMurdie, Lexi Carroll, Rebecca Freed, & Eric M. Wilkins.
A jury must be fairly representative of its community to effectuate the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. Yet historically, trial attorneys have used peremptory challenges to remove jurors discriminatorily based on race and ethnicity. To combat this issue, Arizona became the first state to eliminate peremptory challenges. This Article reports the effects of this change, finding that minority representation on juries has increased without a surge in trial length, the number of mistrials, or convictions. Full Article.