Tyler v. State

ORTH, Judge.

We are presented on this appeal with the question:

Does Maryland or federal law prohibit the State from exercising peremptory challenges at trial in a manner systematically designed to exclude women from service on the jury?

Under the Maryland law, the answer is “yes.”

I

The Supreme Court of the United States in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986), declared that “the State’s privilege to strike individual jurors through peremptory challenges, is subject to the commands of the Equal Protection Clause.” 476 U.S. at 89, 106 S.Ct. at 1719 (footnote…