Peremptory Challenges Based on Religious Affiliation: Are They Constitutional?

Abstract

In Card v. United States, the defense made a Batson objection, believing that the prosecutor was challenging a juror because he was African American. In response, the prosecutor protested his innocence, stating that the reason for the peremptory was that the juror looked like a Muslim. The trial judge, noting that he too had observed that Muslim jurors were often obstinately pro-defendant, overruled the defendant’s Batson objection. The court found that since the prosecutor had struck the juror based on his religion, not his race, there was no violation of the Equal Protection Clause. In other cases, lawyers have exercised peremptory challenges against jurors for being Muslim, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Pentecostal, Catholic, Jewish, and Hindu, among other religions, and for