Smulls v. State

I concur in the principal opinion, but write separately only to raise the question of the wisdom of allowing each side nine peremptory challenges. Our system of peremptory challenges greatly encourages the racial discrimination in jury selection that Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), attempted to end. Moreover, jury selection is susceptible to being manipulated by either prosecution or defense to the extent that the resulting jury does not appear to be drawn from a reasonable cross-section of the community.

The road to Hell, it is said, is paved with good…