Home › Case briefs › Constitutional Law

Powers v. Ohio

Supreme Court of the United States · 1991 · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawEqual ProtectionJury SelectionPeremptory ChallengesStandingEqual Protection Clauseperemptory challengesBatson

Facts

Larry Joe Powers, a white defendant, was tried by jury in Ohio on murder-related charges. During voir dire, the prosecutor used peremptory challenges to strike black venirepersons, including using six of ten total peremptories to remove black prospective jurors, and Powers repeatedly objected under Batson and asked the court to require race-neutral explanations. The trial court overruled the objections and did not require the prosecutor to explain the strikes. Powers was convicted, and his appeal raised, among other things, an equal protection challenge to the prosecution's race-based peremptory strikes despite the fact that he was not black.

Issue

Whether the Equal Protection Clause permits a white criminal defendant to object to the prosecution's race-based peremptory exclusion of black venirepersons. More specifically, whether a criminal defendant has standing to raise the equal protection rights of jurors excluded because of their race even when the defendant and excluded jurors are of different races.

Rule

The Equal Protection Clause prohibits a prosecutor from using peremptory challenges to exclude otherwise qualified and unbiased persons from the petit jury solely because of race. A criminal defendant has third-party standing to raise the equal protection rights of excluded jurors regardless of whether the defendant and the excluded jurors share the same race, so long as the ordinary criteria for third-party standing are satisfied: injury in fact to the litigant, a close relation to the third party, and some hindrance to the third party's ability to protect his or her own interests.

🔒

See the holding & full analysis

Create a free KwikCourt account to unlock the rest of this brief — and practice the case.

The court's holding and reasoning
Doctrine tests, pitfalls & exam hypotheticals
10 practice questions + 4 AI-graded essays on this case

Free sample · practice this case

Test yourself

One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

In a robbery trial in Columbus, Noah Mercer, who is white, objected when the prosecutor used peremptory challenges to remove two Black venirepersons. The trial judge ruled that Noah could not raise any equal protection objection because he and the excluded venirepersons were of different races.

Under the governing rule, how should an appellate court evaluate the trial judge's ruling?

Explanation. The Equal Protection Clause prohibits a prosecutor from using peremptory challenges to exclude otherwise qualified and unbiased persons solely because of race. A criminal defendant has third-party standing to raise the excluded jurors' equal protection rights even without racial identity between defendant and juror. The majority reasoned that the defendant suffers injury because discrimination at his own trial undermines the fairness and integrity of the proceeding, has a sufficiently close relation to the excluded jurors through voir dire and their shared interest in eliminating discrimination, and the jurors face practical hindrances to asserting their own rights.