The Supreme Court, delving again into the sometimes pernicious role of race in U.S. criminal justice, ruled on Monday in favor of a Hispanic man who argued he did not receive a fair trial on sex offense charges due to a juror’s racially biased remarks during trial deliberations.
The justices, voting 5-3, threw out a state court decision that upheld the conviction of Miguel Pena Rodriguez, who was accused of sexually groping two teenage sisters in a bathroom in 2007 at a Colorado race track where he worked. Pena Rodriguez could face a new trial.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, described racial bias in the U.S. criminal justice system as a “familiar and recurring evil that, if left unaddressed, would risk systemic injury to the administration of justice.” Kennedy, a conservative, was joined by the court’s four liberals in the ruling.
The two competing issues in the case were the racially biased juror statements that Pena Rodriguez argued undermined his right to an impartial jury under the U.S. Constitution’s Sixth Amendment, and a Colorado policy that keeps jury deliberations generally off-limits in any attempt to overturn a verdict.
Kennedy said when there is evidence a juror made a “clear statement that indicates he or she relied on racial stereotypes or animus,” the defendant can challenge the jury deliberations.
“When jurors disclose an instance of racial bias as serious as the one involved in this case, the law must not wholly disregard its occurrence,” Kennedy added.
Pena Rodriguez’s appeal focused on whether the trial’s outcome was influenced by the comments made by a former law enforcement officer who served as a juror in the proceedings in Arapahoe County, near Denver.
After the trial, other jurors said the one juror, identified as “H.C.,” stated during deliberations that Pena Rodriguez, a Mexican-born lawful permanent U.S. resident, “did it because he’s Mexican, and Mexican men take whatever they want.”
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Pena Rodriguez was working as a horse keeper at the Arapahoe race track in 2007 when he was arrested after the two teenage sisters, the 14-year-old and 16-year-old daughters of a jockey, identified him as the man who groped them in the women’s bathroom of a barn at the horse racing track where they had gone to take showers.