Selection procedures which favor whites mean that racial minorities are significantly underrepresented on juries

A disproportionately high number of criminal defendants are black and Latino, and yet trial juries tend to be mostly white. In new research into how juries are made up in a southeastern state, Jacinta M. Gau finds that more than 60 percent of juries were majority-white. She writes that this lack of minority representation on juries is likely down to their under representation on master lists, and other barriers such as work and childcare conflicts. According to her research, blacks, Hispanics and Asians were also more likely to be struck from the jury pool for causes such as economic or family hardship. The results also indicate that although blacks are disproportionately struck peremptorily by the prosecution, whites are disproportionately struck by the defense, and the countervailing effects neutralize each other overall.