The Supreme Court made a fair decision when defendant Taylor Strauder conviction was overturned. Due to the racism against black people, all-white jurors were most likely to convict Black defendants regardless on the evidence provided. That is because back then, White jurors were more likely to have negative feeling towards blacks. Predominantly white juries possessed influential bias in courtrooms. If more women and black men were selected to be on jury, white juror bias would have decreased and the defendant Taylor would have received a fair trial. I would have approached the case the same way if I had the power to do so. The Supreme Court did not use any former case to develop their decision. Strauder v West Virginia was the first decision of the US Supreme Court to use the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution to invalidate a state law. The courts found West Virginia's law to be discriminatory, and the law was invalidated. This decision established the rights of African Americans to be seated as jurors. .
Race discrimination was not the only issue in the United States jury service. Gender discrimination was also an issue. Hoyt vs Florida, 368 US 57 (1961) involved a woman by the name of Gwendolyn Hoyt, who was convicted of second degree murder of her husband, Clarence Hoyt. The couple had an argument over his infidelity. Clarence was having an affair with another woman and was constantly neglecting his wife. In order for Gwendolyn to get her husband to return home, she lied and said their son was dying. Once Clarence returned home he was upset about the outrageous lie his wife told him and he refused to accept her apology. Out of anger, Gwendolyn started to strike her husband with a baseball bat and killed him. At trial, Hoyt pleaded temporary insanity. The all-male jurors deliberated for less than thirty minutes and sentenced her to thirty years of hard labor.
