‘Somebody’s life is at stake’ — Louisiana advocates push for fair, representative juries

Glenn Davis was 18 years old when he and two co-defendants stood trial for first-degree murder in Jefferson Parish.

Davis spent nearly 14 years in prison before his conviction was overturned.  He was later exonerated. 

He still remembers sitting through jury selection, “like it was yesterday,” he said.

He is still troubled by the makeup of his jury.

“Out of about 50 potential jurors, we probably had about nine or 10 Black people,” Davis said. “Once they selected the jury, we wound up with nine white jurors and three Black jurors.” Two of the Black jurors voted not to convict, in a 10-2 jury vote.

In 2015, defense attorney Will Snowden, founder of The Juror Project, was questioning prospective jurors in a drug case when prosecutors “struck” – removed – several people who said that they believed that people who used drugs needed medical treatment. 

His client leaned over and asked, “What happened to all my people?” Snowden’s client, who was Black, wasn’t referring only to Black prospective jurors. He was referring to all prospective jurors who believed addiction should be treated rather than punished with prison.

That experience convinced Snowden that the problem was widespread: similar jury selection was taking place in courtrooms across New Orleans and across Louisiana. 

In 2016, Snowden founded The Juror Project, which encourages a broader range of people to serve as jurors and works to build more representative juries.

Out of that realization came The Juror Project. “I had to take my advocacy to the community,” he said, “to educate people about the power of jury service and the ways in which our criminal legal system fails to facilitate representative juries.”

Juries lack diversity
Different life experiences shape how jurors weigh evidence and reach a verdict. A juror who cannot understand the deeper context of a court case may make mistaken, unfair, assumptions about a defendant’s actions within that case.

But in New Orleans and Jefferson and all across the nation, Black jurors are disproportionately struck from juries and significantly underrepresented in the jury pools from which jurors are selected.

But the vast majority of defendants in Orleans are Black. That creates a formula for unfairness. Because all-white juries across the country generally deliberate more briefly and convict Black defendants at much higher rates, researchers have found.

Juries that are not diverse are also more likely to err in their decisions, research shows. “Simply put, American juries lack diversity and representativeness and it comes at the cost of fairness,” Snowden said. 

For decades, jury-deliberation research has supported that conclusion, according to Angela Allen-Bell, a professor at Southern University Law Center, an expert on race and justice whose work includes a book series that begins with Under Indictment: Race, Juries and Justice in Louisiana. 

“It is scientific,” Allen-Bell said, describing how diversity cultivates fairness. “As we put these different people in a deliberation space, we make better group decisions because the variety — the diversity  — slows the process down.”

Allen-Bell, who serves on the board of The Juror Project, encourages people to change their mindset about juries.  “If you don’t show up, you might be the person that enlightens the other 11 because of your unique worldview,” she says. 

Educating communities
Many people do not think about jury service until they receive a summons. Then, often, their first thought is: How do I get out of this? 

The Juror Project tries to reach them before that happens, to explain “the power of jury service,” said Snowden, who directs The Juror Project, a national effort, and serves as a professor at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.

For him, jury selection begins when prospective jurors receive a summons. During voir dire, a phase of jury selection, lawyers question prospective jurors, attorneys identify potential biases before asking that some prospective jurors be removed.

Lawyers do not actually choose who serves on a jury, Snowden said. Instead, they remove — “strike” — prospective jurors, leaving the remaining jurors to decide the case.

All of that is explained whenever Snowden and his team make presentations to students and civic groups.“The Juror Project teaches this very complicated constitutional law in a way that makes people understand it’s about connecting you to this democracy,” Allen-Bell said.

The organization also works with judges and trains attorneys, to promote more representative juries — the “impartial juries” required by the Sixth Amendment. Some states bar people with felony convictions from juries.

Jurors have power of presence
Greater public participation leads to juries that better reflect the community they serve. 

“Most people misunderstand the value of their voice and the power of their presence when they serve on a jury,” Snowden said.

The Juror Project encourages jurors to show up, listen to the evidence, and decide what is just. “All you’re asking them to do at the end of the process is cast a vote,” Allen-Bell said. “I’m arguing in my book that if you really are mad about voter suppression, if you really don’t like being politically excluded, then this is even more reason why you should show up.”

Davis wants to serve on a jury
In 2012, Davis was exonerated, restoring all his rights. Several years later, he was summoned for jury duty three times.“I was hyped for it,” Davis said. “I really wanted to be on that end of the judicial system.”

Every time he reported, Davis held the same hope: that he would finally have the chance to weigh the evidence and decide someone else’s future. “I wanted to render my civic duty,” he said.

Instead, he was sent away in 2014, 2016, 2016. 

At the time, he understood that his wrongful conviction case had followed him into the jury room. “The clerk recognized my name. She told me, ‘You can’t serve. You’ve been a defendant,’” Davis said. “Each time they excused me.” 

Now, people with felony records are able to serve on juries if they have been off paper, parole or probation, and out of prison for five years. At the time he’d received the subpoena, people who had been convicted of felonies were banned from Louisiana juries unless their conviction had been vacated by a pardon from the governor. 

But his record was clean; the wrongful charge had been expunged. 

Davis now wishes he’d asked more questions. Instead, on all three occasions, he followed instructions and left. 

He still holds out hope that he will be summoned again. Until then, he urges everyone he knows to take a jury summons seriously.

“I sat on the other end of that,” he said. “Somebody’s life and freedom is at stake.”