The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that jury deliberations, which are ordinarily kept secret, may be probed for evidence of racial bias among the jurors.
The 5-3 ruling came in a case in which a juror tied Miguel Angel Pena-Rodriguez’s guilt in a sexual assault case to his Mexican heritage. The high court held that he may deserve a new trial.
After Pena-Rodriguez was convicted of sexual battery following sexual advances he made toward two teenage girls in the bathroom of the horse-racing track where he worked, two jurors revealed a third juror determined he was guilty because he is “Mexican, and Mexican men take whatever they want.”
Justice Anthony Kennedy and the court’s four liberal justices formed the majority, along with Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. They agreed with the lawyer for Pena-Rodriguez, who had argued that “racial bias is never the lesser evil.” Sotomayor and Kagan also agreed that race and ethnicity should get extra protection.
Kennedy, in his decision, said he was concerned that racist comments could be ignored during a death penalty case.
“Would the government of the United States come and make this argument — that the person can be executed despite what we know happened in the jury room?” Kennedy said.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.
