Study: Blacks Blocked From Serving on Southern Juries

So what was that thing Rand Paul was saying again about being against systematic government sanctioned institutional racism? Or even what Rush Limbaugh said a while back that racism is imagined in the minds of blacks and their white liberal enablers?

Oh well, despite the "truthfulness" of Limbaugh and company, a new study brought forth by the folks at Equal Justice Initiative that says differently. The Equal Justice Initiative describes themselves as follows:

The Equal Justice Initiative is a private, nonprofit organization that provides legal representation to indigent defendants and prisoners who have been denied fair and just treatment in the legal system.

We litigate on behalf of condemned prisoners, juvenile offenders, people wrongly convicted or charged with violent crimes, poor people denied effective representation, and others whose trials are marked by racial bias or prosecutorial misconduct. EJI works with communities that have been marginalized by poverty and discouraged by unequal treatment.

EJI also prepares reports, newsletters and manuals to assist advocates and policymakers in the critically important work of reforming the administration of criminal justice.

Pictured above is Curtis Flowers as he sat at his Mississippi  capital trial in 2004. His conviction was overturned by the Mississippi Supreme Court. Racial "bias" was noted as prosecutors used all of their peremptory strikes against blacks in the jury pool. A practice that is supposed to be unconstitutional.

Particularly, the study is centered on the blocking of blacks and other minorities from serving as jurors across the south. Over at the New York Times they do a good job of highlighting this egregious practice by using specific examples of cases. I highly recommend it as a good read for naysayers and racism chasers alike.