Changing jury selection could add racial element to verdicts

Re: Canada ‘must do better,’ Feb. 13.

Outrage over the Gerald Stanley verdict in the death of Colten Boushie has focused our attention on different aspects of our justice system, one of which is jury selection.

The claim is that excluding some Indigenous Peoples by peremptory challenge was unfair and affected the trial outcome. But parsing this logically leads to the conclusion that the verdict might have been different if only there had been a few Indigenous Canadians on the jury, and that, given the same facts, one or more jurors might have voted differently based solely on their race. This is insulting to all Canadians of all racial backgrounds.

It is important to remember that the Crown and the defence each have the same number of peremptory challenges, which may be used for any reason. Given equal challenges, there is no inherent advantage to the defence and no evidence to suggest that challenges are racially motivated. The Crown or defence may exclude a potential juror based only on gut feeling.

Canada, so far, has been able to avoid the divisive racial politics infecting U.S. jurisprudence, including jury selection. The U.S. experience has shown us clearly that this is a road we do not want to take. However, in the aftermath of the Stanley verdict, our government has predictably promised to tinker with peremptory challenges, presumably to achieve a more equitable “racial balance” on juries. Not only does this imply that jurors of different racial backgrounds would view and consider evidence differently, it also would damage race relations because any verdict would be examined for racial bias based on jury composition, rather than actual evidence.

The Stanley verdict is a highly emotional issue that has the potential to cause a disproportionate reaction by our government.

Rick Caverly, Ottawa