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Draft for class project on Women in United States Juries

Lead section
Women’s jury service in the United States has expanded dramatically since the end of the nineteenth century. Up until the late twentieth century, women were routinely excluded or allowed to opt-out from jury service in the United States. The push for women's jury rights generated debate similar to the women's suffrage movement, permeating the media with arguments for and against. Federal and state court case rulings increased women's participation on juries. Some states allowed women to serve on juries much earlier than others. States also differed on whether women's suffrage implied women's jury service.

History
The jury of matrons was an early exception to the exclusion of women from juries. Stemming from English common law, matrons in the American colonies were occasionally called upon in cases involving pregnant women to offer expertise on pregnancy and childbirth.

Most arguments for exclusionary policies relied on the belief that women had other preceding duties in the home. The belief that women were too sensitive or incompetent to be jurors was also widespread. Some opponents of female jurors sought to shield women from the unpleasant content of many court cases. At a time when women were beginning to assert their sameness with men, the movement for jury rights often required them to emphasize their differences, arguing that men and women were not interchangeable.

The movement to include women on juries largely coincided with the women’s suffrage movement. However, when women gained the right to vote, it was not automatically clear that women also had the right to serve on juries. In fact, with federal women’s suffrage came many questions about women’s citizenship like whether women could remain citizens after marrying a foreigner, hold a political office, or serve on a jury. The movement for women’s jury rights has been described as “something very like a second suffrage campaign.”

Portrayals of Women as Jurors
The media portrayed female jurors in both positive and negative ways as women throughout the country pushed to gain the right to serve on juries. This mirrors the ways in which women’s suffrage was displayed in the media. Many of the same arguments both for and against women’s suffrage were used in the case of women’s jury service. For example, an argument against both suffrage and jury service was that both would be disruptive to women's’ responsibilities in the home. In addition to this, it was believed that jury duty might not be suitable for women and their perceived delicate nature. Some media portrayals claimed that women would be swayed by handsome male criminals and allow guilty men to walk free. The opposite argument was that men were already being swayed by the beauty of some women criminals, and that women on juries would temper this occurrence.







Court Cases
Court cases shaped the movement to include women in jury service. Key court cases took gradual steps towards full inclusion of women, first targeting opt-in policies, then opt-out policies, and later peremptory strikes based on gender. The debate often centered around whether jury service was a duty or a privilege of citizenship and whether or not it could be optional.

Strauder v. West Virginia (1879)
After an African-American man killed his wife and was tried by a jury of all white men, Strauder v. West Virginia was primarily concerned with the exclusion of African Americans from juries. However, while the Supreme Court ruled that excluding African-Americans from juries was unconstitutional, it allowed for the exclusion of women from juries, stating that a state “may confine the selection [of jurors] to males.” Strauder v. West Virginia set a precedent that was followed years later in Hoyt v. Florida.

Glasser v. United States (1942)
Glasser v. United States was one of the first notable cases where the defendants argued that their jury was unconstitutional because women had been excluded from the jury pool. Ultimately, the Supreme Court decided that the all-male jury make-up was acceptable. The phrase “cross-section of the community,” commonly used throughout the rest of the women’s jury movement, first appeared in this court case. It reads, “[Officials] must not allow the desire for competent jurors to lead them into selections which do not comport with the concept of the jury as a cross-section of the community.”

Hoyt v. Florida (1961)
In Hoyt v. Florida, the Supreme Court upheld Florida’s “opt-in” policy for female jurors. Mrs. Gwendolyn Hoyt and her husband Clarence Hoyt spent years in a strained marriage. He was physically abusive to his wife, involved in affairs, and often gone on trips. One day in 1957, a tense conversation led Mrs. Hoyt to strike her husband over the head with a broken baseball bat; he died two days later. She was charged with second-degree murder and, after a 25 minute deliberation by an all male jury, she was sentenced to thirty years in prison. At the time, women were allowed to serve on juries in Florida, but they had to opt-in to be on the jury list instead of automatically being registered like men. In Hoyt’s county, only 220 women were registered for jury service, whereas 46,000 women were registered to vote. Hoyt argued that she did not receive a trial by an impartial jury due to this opt-in policy, but she lost the case. The logic behind the ruling relied on the assumption that jury service was a burden to women, rather than a responsibility or a privilege. The court allowed universal exemption of women from jury service so women could attend to their duties in the home.

Healy v. Edwards (1973)
Although not a Supreme Court case, Healy v. Edwards, fought in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, was among the first to oppose previous rulings of Strauder v. West Virginia and Hoyt v. Florida. Ruth Bader Ginsburg served as the attorney representing Marsha Healy in opposing Louisiana’s optional jury service for women. In her statements, Ginsburg expanded the plaintiffs to include three groups: women like Healy whose citizenship was diminished by making citizenship duties optional, women defendants who were denied the right to a jury of their peers by not having women on their jury, and men who had to be called in more often for jury duty because women weren’t required to. Ginsburg argued that “a flavor, a distinct quality is lost if either sex is excluded.”

Taylor v. Louisiana (1975)
Taylor v. Louisiana’s ruling was similar to Healy v. Edwards, but it was fought in the Supreme Court so it overturned Hoyt v. Florida. Billy Taylor kidnapped and robbed a woman, her daughter, and her grandson and raped the woman. Louisiana had an “opt-in” policy similar to Florida’s. Taylor’s jury was called from a pool of all men, which, like Hoyt, Taylor argued violated his right to an impartial jury. Opposing attorneys argued that Taylor didn’t have a right to this argument because he wasn’t a part of the excluded minority—he wasn’t a woman. However, the judge rejected this argument and ruled in favor of Taylor, stating that every defendant deserved a jury from a fair cross section of his peers. Taylor v. Louisiana largely takes its argument from the 1946 Supreme Court case Ballard v. United States. Ballard ruled that excluding women from the jury pool didn’t make for a fair cross section of the community, but it had little effect because only federal courts were subject to the ruling. In 1968, Duncan v. Louisiana made the Sixth Amendment, the right to an impartial jury, apply to states as well, which political scientist Eric Kasper suggests explains the difference between the rulings in Hoyt v. Florida and Taylor v. Louisiana.

Duren v. Missouri (1979)
By 1979, many states had “opt-out” jury service policies for women rather than “opt-in” policies, making women eligible for automatic exemption from jury service. Supreme Court case Duren v. Missouri challenged these policies. Ruth Bader Ginsburg served as the challenging attorney. The court produced a three-part test to identify discrimination in jury selection. In order to pass, the jury pool must regularly reflect an accurate proportion of members of a distinct group in the general population—in this case, women. The court ruled that opt-out policies did not meet these criteria and, thus, were unconstitutional.

JEB v. Alabama (1994)
Supreme Court case JEB v. Alabama involved a woman who was trying to get child support after her child’s father abandoned them. The attorneys used peremptory strikes to eliminate all the male jurors. Following the precedent of Batson v. Kentucky, which banned peremptory strikes based on race, the Supreme Court also banned peremptory strikes based on gender. While previous court decisions relied on the Sixth Amendment and the idea of a jury being a fair cross-section of the community, JEB v. Alabama cited the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Timeline
The push for women’s jury rights was largely fought for on a state-by-state basis, with each state facing its own unique challenges.

Caroline Paxton's Peer Review
The article is very thorough and well organized. It offers a broad view of Women in US Juries, rather than getting too specific about one thing, which is great for how people use Wikipedia. The writing is neutral and opinionated. I realize this is obviously a rough draft and you were probably planning on doing this anyway, but I think you should add more specific examples of how female jurors were portrayed in the media. That information sounds really interesting. Also Glasser v. United States looks kind of short, so maybe either add more, or remove that portion if it isn't that significant.

Response
Thanks for the review! We will definitely be expanding the shorter sections; this was just an outline. Was there a specific part you thought was too opinionated?

Abbie Jefferies' Peer Review
I really like the information that you have put in this article so far. The inclusion of the court cases is very informational and helpful to knowing more about your topic. I know this is only a rough draft, but it could use more detail and explanation of how women actually came to be on juries and their progression up until now, as I found myself having to search for information about that in your article. Also, some sections are kind of short and not very detailed, so I'd add to those or narrow them down to the most important points. Overall, good job so far and on being neutral. Just add more straightforward information and I think it will turn out great!

Response
Hopefully, our expanded lead and general history section will answer your questions, so readers won't have to search for information. We're planning on expanding, we just wanted to make sure the sections were there for this outline. Thanks for the review!