Peremptory Challenges

I spoke about sortition juries for various things--one can say that this is a mantra for the participatory democracy movement, in the same that the free market is for many on the extreme right. In our conventional juries, we allow either side to remove juror's. This is in addition to allowing either side to refer to specific reason for bias--in an extreme example, a family member of the defendant by random luck is selected randomly. However, peremptory challenges can be used to eliminate those of a particular ethnic group. Justice Stevens wanted to preserve peremptory challenges but prevent what most would consider abuse. And, the peremptory challenge is a legal tradition and right going back to England. and

What is the role of peremptory challenges in sortition juries? Perhaps, larger juries, such as used in the Athenian System. where an occasional biased juror would be overwhelmed, is the answer. Could we have a jury on juries to handle the disqualification of jurors, instead of a possibly biased or bribable judge?

Thanks to the Juries blog for the reference to this article.