U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court Upholds Conviction Despite Improperly Seated Juror
Posted Mar 31, 2009, 09:29 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a trial judge’s mistake in seating a juror despite a lawyer’s peremptory challenge did not require reversal of the defendant’s murder conviction.
In a unanimous opinion, the court upheld the conviction of Michael Rivera, despite an unsuccessful attempt by his lawyer to use a peremptory challenge to dismiss a female juror, according to the Associated Press and SCOTUSblog. The woman became the jury forewoman.
Rivera had argued the mistaken denial of his lawyer’s peremptory challenge was a due process violation, but the Supreme Court disagreed in Rivera v. Illinois. Writing for the court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said peremptory challenges are governed by state law rather than the federal Constitution, and states could withhold them altogether.
"A state trial court's good faith but erroneous denial of a criminal defendant's peremptory challenge, we hold, does not require automatic reversal of the defendant's conviction, provided that all persons seated on the jury are qualified and unbiased,” she wrote in the opinion (PDF).