{"id":14465,"date":"2011-08-23T07:46:10","date_gmt":"2011-08-23T12:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=14465"},"modified":"2011-08-23T07:49:35","modified_gmt":"2011-08-23T12:49:35","slug":"gender-discrimination-in-jury-selection-as-ineffective-assistance-of-counsel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/08\/gender-discrimination-in-jury-selection-as-ineffective-assistance-of-counsel\/","title":{"rendered":"Gender Discrimination in Jury Selection as Ineffective Assistance of Counsel"},"content":{"rendered":"

A defendant\u2019s right to reasonably\u00a0competent legal representation is violated when the defendant\u2019s lawyer discriminates on the basis of gender during jury selection, the Seventh Circuit ruled last week inWinston v. Boatwright<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(No. 10-1156).\u00a0 The court\u2019s reasoning would presumably apply equally to racial discrimination.\u00a0 However, because of the peculiarities of federal habeas law, the particular defendant who presented the claim\u00a0in\u00a0Winston<\/em>\u00a0was unable to obtain any relief.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what happened.\u00a0 Winston was charged with sexual assault of a fifteen-year-old girl and convicted\u00a0by an all-woman jury.\u00a0 His lawyer had\u00a0used his seven peremptory strikes to remove six men and one woman from the jury.\u00a0 As Winston\u2019s post-conviction counsel later discovered,\u00a0the trial lawyer\u00a0struck the male jurors because he thought that females would be more critical of the victim.<\/p>\n

Apart from the fact that such gender discrimination is illegal, trial counsel\u2019s strategy may actually\u00a0have been a good one.\u00a0 Indeed,\u00a0the jury acquitted Winston of\u00a0an intercourse charge.<\/p>\n

No matter, the Seventh Circuit ruled.\u00a0 Competent counsel (in the constitutional sense) does not discriminate against men in the exercise of peremptory strikes.\u00a0 Period.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Because Winston\u2019s claim arose in a\u00a0habeas challenge to his state-court conviction, the Seventh Circuit had to sort out the complex interaction between the\u00a0Batson\u00a0<\/em>line of cases on discriminatory use of peremptory strikes, the\u00a0Strickland\u00a0<\/em>line of cases on ineffective assistance of counsel, and the\u00a0limitations on habeas relief imposed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.<\/p>\n

In order to establish a Sixth Amendment violation,\u00a0Strickland\u00a0<\/em>requires that\u00a0a defendant show both that his lawyer provided unreasonably poor\u00a0performance and that he was prejduced by that poor performance.\u00a0 The court had little difficulty concluding that Winston satisfied the performance prong:<\/p>\n

Intentionally violating the Constitution by discriminating against jurors on account of their sex is not consistent with, or reasonable under, \u201cprevailing professional norms.\u201d\u00a0Strickland<\/em>, 466 U.S. at 688. To the contrary, Wisconsin forbids lawyers from engaging in unlawful representation.\u00a0See<\/em>\u00a0WIS. RULES OF PROF\u2019L CONDUCT, at Preamble (\u201cA lawyer\u2019s conduct should conform to the requirements of the law.\u201d);\u00a0id<\/em>. at R. 3.1(a) (\u201cIn representing\u00a0a client, a lawyer shall not . . . knowingly advance a claim or defense that is unwarranted under existing law.\u201d). . . . In light of these well-established professional norms, we have no trouble concluding that trial counsel\u2019s decision to strike jurors based solely upon their gender constituted deficient performance.\u00a0 (21-22)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The prejudice prong was the more difficult one, for prejudice is not normally required for a defendant to obtain relief on a\u00a0Batson<\/em>-type claim.\u00a0 Here\u2019s how the court resolved the tension:<\/p>\n

[W]hile a direct\u00a0Batson<\/em>\u00a0claim would be viewed as a structural error and thus not subject to a harmless-error rule, a\u00a0Strickland<\/em>\u00a0argument requires an examination of prejudice. But the Supreme Court has said that structural errors fall within \u201ca limited class of fundamental constitutional errors that defy analysis by harmless error standards.\u201d\u00a0Neder<\/em>, 527 U.S. at 7 (internal quotation marks deleted). If, therefore, analysis is impossible for harmless-error purposes, then it is hard to see how it would be possible for purposes of\u00a0Strickland<\/em>\u00a0prejudice\u2014after all, prejudice is the central inquiry in a harmless error inquiry. But a closer look at\u00a0Neder<\/em>\u00a0reveals that the Court was not so much dispensing with harmless error as it was finding that structural errors \u201care so intrinsically harmful as to require automatic reversal.\u201d\u00a0Id<\/em>. Translated into\u00a0Strickland<\/em>\u2019s terms, it was saying that such errors inevitably \u201cundermine[] confidence in the outcome\u201d of a proceeding. 466 U.S. at 694. \u00a0(24)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But this finding of per se prejudice did not end the matter, for AEDPA limits relief to\u00a0cases in which a state court has\u00a0unreasonably applied a\u00a0clearly established Supreme Court precedent.\u00a0 The problem for Winston, as the Seventh Circuit saw things, is that the Supreme Court did not clearly establish the principle of automatic reversal for\u00a0Batson\u00a0<\/em>violations until\u00a0Rivera v. Illinois<\/em>, 129 S. Ct. 1446, 1455 (2009) \u2014 two years after the state courts had rejected Winston\u2019s\u00a0Strickland\u00a0<\/em>claim.\u00a0 Thus, although we can now see in hindsight that the state courts made a mistake in failing to give relief to Winston, he is precluded from getting a remedy for that error in federal court.<\/p>\n

Cross posted at Life Sentences Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A defendant\u2019s right to reasonably\u00a0competent legal representation is violated when the defendant\u2019s lawyer discriminates on the basis of gender during jury selection, the Seventh Circuit ruled last week inWinston v. Boatwright\u00a0(No. 10-1156).\u00a0 The court\u2019s reasoning would presumably apply equally to racial discrimination.\u00a0 However, because of the peculiarities of federal habeas law, the particular defendant who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,122,57,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-public","category-race-and-the-law","category-seventh-circuit","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}