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11 Nov, 12 tweets, 6 min read
Jury selection in two of the most high-profile murder trials in the country, the Kyle Rittenhouse and Ahmaud Arbery cases, resulted in mostly-white juries.

Legal experts told Insider how this happened, and why the jury selection system is imperfect. ⚖️

insider.com/kyle-rittenhou…
White teenager Kyle Rittenhouse faces homicide charges after killing two people and injuring a third during unrest tied to the shooting of a Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last summer.

insider.com/kyle-rittenhou…
Meanwhile, three white men in Georgia are facing murder charges in connection with the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man whose family says he was out for a jog.

insider.com/why-ahmaud-arb…
Jury selection for the Arbery case was a nearly two-and-a-half-week-long process, while the Rittenhouse jury was seated in just a day.

But they both ended with the same result: a mostly white jury with the exception of one person of color.

insider.com/kyle-rittenhou…
The defense and prosecution each get a limited amount of peremptory strikes, and that number varies from state to state.

Vanderbilt law professor Chris Slobogin said the number of peremptory strikes can be adjusted by the judge.

insider.com/kyle-rittenhou… Text graphic reads: Voire dire. / vwahr-deer /. Noun. The ju
According to the @timesenterprise, the judge in the Arbery case allowed the defense 24 challenges and the prosecution 12 challenges.

The defense having twice as many peremptory challenges gave them more power to shape the jury, Slobogin said.

insider.com/kyle-rittenhou…
A pool of 48 potential jurors initially was considered for the Arbery case, 36 of which were white and 12 of which were Black — reflecting the racial makeup of Glynn County.

All but one of those Black jurors was eliminated from the final jury.

insider.com/kyle-rittenhou…
Peremptory strikes are allowed to be called into question to protect from racial discrimination.

However in the Arbery case, the judge accepted the defense's explanations for why they struck 11 Black jurors, and the case was allowed to proceed.

insider.com/kyle-rittenhou…
The Rittenhouse jury makeup is less surprising to Wisconsin-based defense attorney Julius Kim.

In Kenosha County, where Kim has argued cases, 87% of residents are white and 7% are Black.

insider.com/kyle-rittenhou…
However, DMV records often are used to find people for jury duty, and Kim said that could mean some races that are more likely to have a driver's license could be overrepresented.

insider.com/kyle-rittenhou… Text-graphic shows a quote from Wisconsin-based defense att
Both Kim and Slobogin said it still doesn't look good that the juries in the Rittenhouse and Arbery cases ended up being overwhelmingly white, with Kim saying the makeup of the Arbery jury makes him more "nervous."

insider.com/kyle-rittenhou… Text-graphic shows a quote from Vanderbilt law professor Chr
Closing arguments for Rittenhouse’s trial are expected to begin next week as both sides have rested their case.

For more coverage on the Arbery and Rittenhouse cases, follow @thisisinsider.

insider.com/witnesses-sugg…

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