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Jeff Herrera/NBC San Diego
A group of protesters attempted to enter the clerk's office in San Diego, August 19, 2010, but they were told they would only be allowed inside if they had an appointment.
A judge in San Diego has dismissed an entire jury panel in a case involving same-sex marriage activists, saying the prosecutors’ rejection of a possible juror because of his sexual orientation violated the defendants’ rights to a representative jury, local media reports say.
Superior Court Judge Joan Weber issued the ruling Tuesday after lawyers for the group of activists, known as the “Equality 9,” challenged the rejection of the juror, who was gay and had protested in support of gay rights in the past, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
Defense attorneys said the juror’s dismissal violated their clients’ rights to a fair trial. But prosecutors said answers given on a questionnaire by the potential juror, including the past protest, were the reasons why he was let go, according to the Tribune. Assistant City Attorney Andrew Jones said the case was focused on the actions of the activists.
“That's all that this is about,” Jones said. “It has nothing to do with same-sex marriage.”
The judge said the prosecutors’ actions were “shocking” and she was “heartbroken,” according to the Tribune and NBCSanDiego.com.
Weber's decision to dismiss an entire jury panel was "fairly rare" and "doesn't happen every day," Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association, told msnbc.com.
He thought the prosecutors did not overstep their bounds.
"People get removed from juries all the time for all kinds of reasons," he said. "There was nothing shocking about them removing somebody who they believed could not be fair and impartial.”
Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) President Herndon Graddick disagreed.
"Attempting to exclude a group of people from participating in the legal process is un-American," he said, adding that many states -- though not California -- lack protections for gay jurors.
David Loy, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego & Imperial Counties, said “the judge clearly did the right thing.”
“Jurors should not be excluded from service because of their sexual orientation any more so than they can be excluded because of race or gender,” he told msnbc.com.
The group of defendants -- originally nine, but now six -- were charged with refusing to disperse and interfering with the business of a public agency for holding a long, sit-down protest in a hallway outside the county clerk's office on August 19, 2010, according to NBCSanDiego.com.
They had been protesting in support of a couple who had made an appointment to marry after U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker overturned Prop. 8, California’s same-sex marriage ban, and said the marriages could begin Aug. 18 of that year.
However, the county clerk would not certify same-sex marriages because Walker’s ruling was set aside pending appellate review.
Of the nine protesters, three accepted a deal from the city attorney’s office to plead no contest to an infraction, according to the Tribune. The lawyers will be in court early Wednesday to talk about the next steps in the case of the remaining six.
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Leave a Comment:
Gee, usually the DA and defense attorneys strive to get anyone who demonstrates an IQ over 75 off the jury.
Gay is NOT the issue. The issue is the persons actions in previous protests. They could have been straight and participated in protests and it would have been the same. Yes, there is a definite bias there on the part of the potential juror. I have been dismissed during jury selection twice. One of those times was simply because I don't believe people should play married when they are not married. As the trial involved domestic violence between 2 people living together who were not married I was cut. I was seen as potentially biased. This is no different. The juror was seen as potentially biased...end of story. Now could we please get on to some real news and not a political agenda.
as usual you are all blinded to the actual reason the juror was dismissed. because he was gay, in your minds means that was the reason he was dismissed. even though when you read the story it was made clear by the prosecutors that the decision had nothing to do with his sexual orientation.
If you was putting together a jury to try osama bin laden would you put a radical muslim on the jury that has came out for the destruction of american and thinks bin laden is a hero ?????? no you wouldn't. and it wouldnt be a fair trial with him on the jury either but the way you are thinking you would have to have a jury full of american hating muslims for it to be fair
Ronnie: No, I wouldn't put a radical muslim on a jury for bin Laden, but neither would I exclude all muslims from such a jury. Would you exclude all straight people from the trial of a person accused of a heterosexual sex crime???
dear dslsca
I couldn't have said it any better !! But Mr Ronnie 1967 is one of those who think they know all and mask the truth by twisting things around GREAT Responce
What is being "twisted"?How hard is it to just understand the rules? BOTH the defense and prosecuting attorney get to remove jurors whom they beleive will be biased for (prosecuting) or against (defense) the defendant. This is completely standard procedure in EVERY jury selection.
If you read the article you would see that the juror answered on a questionarre that they had participated as an activist in homosexual rights demonstrations. Which I might add plenty of straight people support. The defendants in the case were being charged with crimes commited during a homosexual activism demonstration. Clearly somone, straight or gay, who has demonstrated in favor of gay rights could display person bias in favor of the defendant. A jury must be unbiased, neither in favor nor against the accused or their actions when selected for the jury. It would be no different if the person on trial was being tried for insurance fraud, and one of the jurors admitted they had been denied coverage on a major insurance claim. The juror themselves did not do anything illegal, but would quite possibly have pre-existing sympathetic feelings for the defendant because of a negative experience with an insurance company. See, so what you have is pure equal application of the law, which apparently in your opinion isn't good enough.
Furthermore a Judge is REQUIRED to recuse themselves from any case they feel they may have person bias in as well. Clearly since this judge was "heartbroken" that the prosecuting attorney simply did what any prosecuter in any case has a duty to the state to do, create an unbiased jury, the judge is displaying personal bias and it is she who should have left the case, not the jury. Instead she wasted the time of the jurors who were called, and the money of the taxpayers who paid for their time, all to make a political statement.
The trial involves a gay rights issue. They dismissed a juror not only because he's gay, but because he openly supported gay rights in the past.
Sounds like GLAAD needs a quick lesson on mistrials and basic legal procedures. What a non-story.
If I protest something and then am called to jury duty I would excuse myself. If you are out protesting against or for something you can not be on a jury to try a similar case. It doesn't matter what you were protesting you are for that cause. Yes he/she should not be allowed on the jury. They will be biase. The judge who is "heartbroken" should not be the judge for this case.
justme: just fyi, you can't "excuse yourself" from jury duty. Try that and see how you like a Contempt of Court citation.
dslsca, come on, you know that justMe probably didn't mean that they simply wouldn't show up to court that day, but rather that they would honestly disclose their prior biases when asked that would prevent them from being an impartial juror, as one must do.
Why do you keep fighting the simple facts of our legal system just because in this case they do not fit your opinion of what is fair?
Right from the US Courts dot gov website: "...The potential jurors complete questionnaires to help determine whether they are qualified to serve on a jury... The judge and the attorneys then ask the potential jurors questions to determine their suitability to serve on the jury, a process called voir dire. The purpose of voir dire is to exclude from the jury people who may not be able to decide the case fairly. Members of the panel who know any person involved in the case, who have information about the case, or who may have strong prejudices about the people or issues involved in the case, typically will be excused by the judge. The attorneys also may exclude a certain number of jurors without giving a reason."
or USC, Title 28, Part V, Chapter 121, section 1822
(c)... Provided, That any person summoned for jury service may be
(2) excluded by the court on the ground that such person may be unable to render impartial jury service or that his service as a juror would be likely to disrupt the proceedings, or ...
So there it is, in black and white, in the rules of law. These rules exist to insure an impartial jury, neither prejudiced for nor against the defendant.
I fail to see how being gay means he's partial. Would you on the same grounds exclude all straight jurors for a heterosexual sex crime case?
Because he admitted to participating as an activist in pro-gay demonstrations, which is what the defendants were doing when they broke the law. It is in the article, the second paragraph, for crying out loud. If that information came from the questionarre as they say it did, it should be fairly easy to prove. I am guessing they don't just throw those things away. Even if the juror dismissed WASN'T gay, but was straight, and supported gay rights as an activist they should be excluded from a case about gay activists. See, so you remove the gay juror part of the equasion, and the juror still gets dismissed, meaning the gay part wasn't the deciding factor.
As for your other question, I don't see how someone being accused of heterosexual rape, to follow your example, would be biased for or against by anyone on the basis of sexual orientation. Rape is a crime, period. Now if someone was being tried for rape I wouldn't want a registered sex offender, gay or straight, on his jury. So see, your example is a cheap diversion tactic you are trying to use, and frankly it has no bearing on THIS case.
And furthermore, an attorney is allowed to exclude some jurors "without giving a reason." There are some exceptions that someone cannot be excused on the basis of only age, race, sex, ect. Other than that the attorney can excuse you because they think you are ugly and don't want to have to look at you while they are presenting their case. That is obviously an extreme example and would never happen, but it shows a point.
You want this to be an issue of some kind of rights violation, when to the contrary, it is an explicit use of EQUAL rights. Every person, no matter what they are accused of or under what circumstances they became accused, are due an impartial jury of their peers. That means no one on the jury should have any pre-existing reasons to be in favor of the defendant, and none that prejudice them against the defendant. It is the express job of the Attorneys to find those jurors who are biased and remove them. Both sides are given equal chance to do so.
Let me give you a real world example. My father a few years ago went to federal jury duty, the case was about some smugglers who were caught off of the coast of Florida. Their defense was that they thought they were going to Cuba but they got lost. My father has a lot of boating experience, and when questioned gave his honest opinion that he felt it was already his opinion that it was extrodinarily unlikely that they simply got lost and ended up in US waters. He was excused from the jury by the defense's attorney. This situation is no different, only because the word gay was thrown in the mix it is suddenly national news.
OK, so you think he'd be biased toward these people who allegedly protested illegally just because he protested legally? I fail to see that. I think a perfectly reasonable case could be made that illegal protestors give legal ones a bad name and thus that a legal protestor might be biased against illegal ones.
But they don't have to prove or disprove anything, all they have to say is they feel you could be biased, and they don't want you on the jury.
For crying out loud the justice system is not about people feeling special that they got to be on a jury, it is about giving defendants a fair trial, and part of them getting a fair trial is that no one on the jury is biased.
In the time we have been discussing this there have been likely thousands of jury selections across the country, and thousands of attorneys have dismissed thousands of jurors for every reason you can think of under the sun. It is a part of every trial by jury. Period.
The judge has violated the jury selection process. Each side's attorneys are allowed to dismiss a certain number of jurors if they believe that juror's profile suggest that their opinion would be biased. Just as the one attorney had the right to dismiss a juror if they were gay, the other attorney had the right to dismiss someone that was not gay. The judge has revealed his own bias in this case and reverse discrimination is STILL discrimination.
Wow, apparently none of you have ever worked in or around the legal system. This kind of thing happens all the time. The prosecution wants a juror who will be either unbiased or biased towards their viewpoint. If the juror is gay and the defendant is a gay rights activist the prosecution will assume that his bias will lie with the defendant. This whole publicity part is the defence's way of getting public sympathy. This happens all the time across all races, genders, orientations, etc.
Everybody here is just doing thier job, Judge, Defense Attorney's and Prosecuters...it's the system...live with it
No, everyone was doing their job until the judge decided to throw out the jury pool because she was upset due to her own personal biases. If she had done her job she should have recused herself from the case.
Our legal system and jury selection process is designed to try to minimize pre-trial bias. The prosecution (and this article) clearly showed a bias:
And now the judge has also displayed her bias and willingness to violate the prosecutions right to reject a biased juror. Personal bias has no place on our Supreme Court, or at least shouldn't be used to circumvent our legal system.
Either you are blind, or you didn't read the article. The dismissed juror protested for this very case pre-trial. And YES, the other attorney has the right to exclude straight jurors if they have displayed a bias against gays. Each attorney has the same amount of excludes available to them. It's our legal system, if you don't see this ability to exclude bias as a key part of our legal system, then you have no business presiding on our Supreme Court.
If this was the exercise of one peremptory challenge against a single juror I don't think the judge did the right things. Gays were charged over conduct at a demonstration and the juror was gay and had participated in protests. The PA, probably rightly, did not feel this juror woud be impartial. If there is demonstrated to be an effort to keep all gays off the jury then that would definitely be a problem.
this usurper was a coward all during this event. he shut out what was taking place while pulping his golf swing that day. now he pounding his chest and suck in something he did not want to face that day. i truly believe these brave SEALs should be awarded for their bravery by President Bush, not by this cowarded inept usurper from Kenya. it was pinneta and sec of state gave the go ahead in this triumphet mission, not obama wanabe. plz read the truth from an ex-SEALs official on Google under "what really did happen to bid laden fateful day"
Why don't you sober up before you confuse everyone with your incoherent rant?
Why would include anyone who is protesting gay or not the stuff that the jury will judge. The lawers always remove for what ever they want to stack the jury for a give outcum. If the lawer for the same sex marriage did not do his job to bad. The judge screwed this one up but thats the world of slim that the gay and lesbo are distroying daily. The only real justice is to toss the case out for lack of common sence.
To her royal highness judge Weber, this is nothing to be shocked about. It was a judge who tossed out the will of the people in a referendum on same sex marriage. This is something to be shocked about. Grow up.
Since when does a prosecutor not have the right, upon encountering a juror who is himself part of the issue at hand, to remove a juror or even the whole panel? Why do the homosexuals posting here think they have a right to pack the panel? Won't their cause stand up to the light of adversarial process before an unbiased panel? Bottom line: Is the only one a homosexual trusts another homosexual?
Hey Tom: can you point me to the place where the article indicates that homosexuals believe they have a right to pack the panel? I missed that part somehow.
I'm not sure I understand your point about a "juror who is himself part of the issue at hand"; how is being gay "part of the issue at hand" as the crime here is refusing to disperse and interfering with the business of a public agency"? What does being gay have to do with those things??
no comment
If a case has potential for the death penalty - is it wrong for prosecution to ask for the views of a prospective juror on whether he / she could cast a vote of guilty, knowing the possible punishment?
In a case which has personal benefits or consequences to a juror - shouldn't the prosecutor have the right to include or exclude that person from the pool?
Understand that both sides have a vote... its not a one-side "kangaroo court" the other side is attempting to load the jury with jurors accepting of their point of view too. Its a compromise for both sides in trying to find a cross section of jurors who can vote on the fact presented - not just on their personal views or prejudices.
There is a great video covering the event if you are interested in the seeing the original action here
hmm, link is missing...
www youtube com/watch?v=dIqlPeyd1Og
add the dots after www and youtube to fix the link
Like many others, I don't know if the potential juror was dismissed because of his sexual orientation (which would be wrong), or because of demonstrated activism that would indicate bias (which would be right).
What bothers me is my concern that this country may be sliding toward a theocracy, like Iran and Saudi Arabia. I don't care if the theocracy is Muslim or Christian, it's just a dictatorship by another name, and sooner or later control winds up in the hands of the "most devout" -- in other words, the bigots.
May be?!
Actually, I agree with the prosecutors on this one. In this instance, I would have dismissed the juror even if he were straight for his stated actions relative to those of the defendants. Too close a conflict of interest.
Why do they say they want a "representative jury" when they are hearing a case involving gay people; yet, they deny a gay person the opportunity to sit on the jury? Sounds like the prosecutor is trying to stack the deck before thet trial begins.
Do any of you even know what a jury selection is about? The lawyers on both sides want to stack the jury that is why they are each only allowed to dismiss a certain amount of jurors. Get a grip people this is not a issue of being gay it is an issue about not being able to give an unbiased opinion. He cannot serve on a jury regarding the same crime he himself has committed. And the judge is looking to gain some political correctness fame for themselves by being an idiot.