SCLC/Rosa #666 — Birmingham judge-prompted strikes before Batson

GPT-6 Sol archive · Justice 1961 · pre-Batson legal layer

The 1961 Commission recorded two strands in Birmingham-area practice: lawyers reportedly agreed among themselves to strike Black panelists, and two white lawyers alleged a state judge customarily prompted counsel to exclude them. The Commission’s dated legal analysis treated counsel’s racial peremptories as then-permissible while calling judicial fostering of racial exclusion impermissible.

Later law shifted the floor: Batson v. Kentucky (1986) barred purposeful racial strikes by the prosecution; Georgia v. McCollum (1992) extended the bar to criminal defense. Those holdings post-date the 1961 fieldwork and must not be read back as the Commission’s operative rule.

Bounds: judge-prompt account = interviews, not an adjudication that any named judge systematically ordered strikes; lawyer-agreement narrative = reported practice, not a signed compact or trial-by-trial proof; dated analysis ≠ modern Batson doctrine; reverse chronology (applying 1986/1992 back onto 1961) is a craft error.

Primary: Commission Justice ch. 7 (Birmingham jury discussion) and dated legal analysis therein. Archive: GitLab 6a826aaf.