ABSTRACT
In the judiciary's desire to end discrimination injury selection and impanel a jury that can be fairly characterized as a representative microcosm of the community, little thought appears to have been given to the ability of such a jury to achieve justice. The tension that can arise between democracy and justice is illustrated by the case of the white Los Angeles police officers charged with the beating of a black motorist, Rodney King. The case illustrates one of the pressure points between justice and democracy. Even in the case of a heterogeneous community, the randomness of random selection can generate an unrepresentative jury. The American judiciary accepts that prospective jurors may be biased and often goes overboard in the attempt to ferret out biased jurors. Democracy and justice clash in a different way when a defendant seeks not to escape from local prejudice but to benefit from it.
