This episode's guest is Sonali Chakravarti, Professor of Government at Wesleyan University.
For three weeks in March and April of 2021, the process of jury selection for the trial of Derek Chauvin was live-streamed on CourtTV. We heard hesitations, nervousness, and expressions of feeling in response to questions about the viral video depicting George Floyd’s death under the knee of Derek Chauvin. The open exploration of critiques of law enforcement and systemic racism during voir dire, jury selection, at the Chauvin trial is a sharp departure from previous cases where judges have been either hostile to critiques of the law or law enforcement or unsure about how to assess juror biases when they speak candidly about their perceptions of racial discrimination. In normalizing the language of the critique of law enforcement during jury selection, three important changes occurred: (1) the first was that Black jurors were less likely to be dismissed for opinions they have long voiced, but which had been seen as the basis for legitimate dismissal, (2) the second was that it clarified what the standard of impartiality should mean for the court in the current era given widespread scrutiny of the racial discrimination within and outside of the law. Lastly, (3) the topics covered during voir dire served to underscore the range of life experiences that are valuable for the jury’s task of phronesis, Aristotle’s term for practical wisdom, that must precede the verdict.
Interview by Dartmouth student Kavya Nivarthy ’25. Edited by Laura Hemlock. Music: Debussy Arabesque no 1. Composer: Claude Debussy
