Commonwealth v. Colon

Opinion by

Packel, J.,

These appeals present the serious question of whether an enforcement official should be permitted to serve as a juror when alleged criminal conduct was aimed at the police.1 The problem is claimed to be accentuated *205by the circumstance that one of the appellants was a Black Muslim.

Three defendants were tried on charges stemming from the nighttime robbery of a West Chester bar. During voir dire the judge refused to dismiss for cause a police commissioner of a local township, after defense counsel had exercised all their peremptory challenges. At the trial there was evidence…