THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VOL.101.NO.92
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1992
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Professor studies Blacks in juries
By Michelle Betts
Kansan staff writer
Both African-American and white prosecuting attorneys in the past have tended to exclude potential African-American jurors by using peremptory challenges, according to a study by a University of Kansas professor.
A peremptory challenge allows prosecutors and defense attorneys to dismiss potential jurors through questions without giving an explanation to the court.
Pete Rowland, associate professor of political science, went to Heinz County, Miss, four years ago to study cases that pre-dated the 1987 U.S. Supreme Court case, Batson vs. Kentucky.
Batson said prosecutors must convince the court that they are excluding an African American for non-racial reasons during the peremptory challenge questioning.
Before the decision, prosecutors were not
required to explain why they were striking someone from the jury during peremptory questioning.
Rowland studied about 380 cases in Heinz County and will compare the findings to results of post-Batson cases.
In the future, African-American representation on juries will improve, because the prosecution must qualify striking an African American from a potential jury, he said.
In the ongoing study, Rowland determined that Heinz County prosecutors, through peremptory challenges, would strike African Americans from the potential jury panel 85 percent of the time, he said.
Rowland said that one prosecutor in Mississippi described the perfect jury as white, middle-aged and unemployed.
"He said his conviction ratewould be sky high if he had 12 of those guys on the jury," Rowland said.
Many prosectors in Heinz County said they excluded African Americans in jury selection because they wanted to convict the defendant, not because they were racially biased, he said.
The study determined that there was not a higher acquittal rate when African Americans sat on juries than when they did not sit on juries, Rowland said.
For example, prosecutors may keep a retired, African-American military officer on the jury, or an African American who, during questioning, said police treated people fairly, he said.
However, prosecutors did not always attempt to strike every African-American potential juror, he said.
Although prosecutors often try to exclude African Americans from juries, the study showed defense attorneys often try to exclude whites, Rowland said.
Rowland said the research was specific to Heinz County. The findings did not give evidence
of exclusion of African Americans in Lawrence, he said.
A faculty research grant from KU financed partor Rowland's research.
He chose the South for the site of his study because of its history of racial tension, and because 25 percent of the population in Heinz County was African American.
That population percentage allowed prosecutors to exclude African Americans from juries, Rowland said. If the population were 50 percent white and 50 percent African American, it would be harder to strike African Americans from the jury, he said.
Stan Daniass, professor of evidence and trials at the KU law school, said exclusion had occurred in the past, and the Batson ruling had an effect on present-day jury selection.
Attorneys have to convince the judge they want to exclude a juror because of a reason brought out in the jury selection process, they cannot exclude them on the basis of race, Davis said.
Admissions bill debate goes on
One vote needed to send plan to full Senate
By Greg Farmer
Kansan staff writer
TOPEKA — One of three undecid
Education Committee must vote in favor of a qualified admissions bill for the legislation to be considered by the full Senate.
The committee should
in high school. That attitude continues into college. Coasting is very expensive for the state and the student."
discuss and vote this week on whether to pass the bill to the Senate floor, said State Sen. Joseph Harder, R-Moundridge and head of the committee.
The committee members were scheduled to vote on the bill yesterday, but they instead spent the hearing asking questions of the bill's supporters and opponents.
The bill would require that students entering a Board of Regents university have at least a 2.0 grade point average, a score of 23 on the ACT or rank in the top one-third of their high school graduating class.
Six votes in favor of the legislation will be required to pass the bill to the Senate floor for debate and a vote.
In a telephone poll conducted before the hearings on the qualified admissions proposal, five committee members said they would vote in favor of the bill, three members said they would vote against the bill and three members said they had not decided.
"I'm not sure the Legislature should decide
The three members who said they had not decided how to vote on the issue were State Sen. Don Montgomery, R-Sabetha, State Sen. Jerry Karr, D-Emporia, and State Sen. Sheila Frahm, R-Colby.
Montgomery asked Regent Rick Harman, who supports qualified admissions, whether the problem the legislation was attempting to solve was in higher education or secondary education.
All three remain undecided on the issue, they said yesterday.
Karr said he was not sure legislated admissions standards would make students prepare themselves better for college
Harman said: "If students in high schools don't have to meet some sort of standard, this leads them to coast
who goes to college, but that
"Admissions counselors seem to be
better equipped to make that decision on an individual basis."
Stanley Koplik, executive director of the Regents, said: "Students will measure up. Tell them what you expect, and they'll do it. Motivation, preparation and commitment is what this bill demands from students."
Frahm said after the meeting that she had never voted in favor of qualified admissions but that she had not decided how she would vote this session.
"It seems that the tone in the state is changing on this issue," Frahm said. "Guidance counselors and administrators at high schools are starting to say admissions standards would help. I'm still not sure how I'll vote."
Audrey Langworthy, R-Prairie Village, is the primary legislative sponsor of the bill. As a member of the committee, she spoke in support of the bill.
"Qualified admissions will set the stage for some dramatic improvements in student outcomes," Langworthy said. "Students will perform better just knowing it matters. We all want educational reform. This proposal is a key link to reform."
"As a taxpayer, I want to know that my tax dollars are being used wisely," she said. "Remedial courses and a five-to six-year stint in college due to poor preparation are not wise expenditures."
Langworthy said students needed to be held accountable for their educations.
Accompanying the KU Jazz Singers in Dizzy Gillespie's "A Night in Tunisia," Lawrence senior Jay Stutter contributes a piano solo. The Ensemble 1, both directed by jazz instructor Dan Gailey, performed last night at Crafton-Preyer Theatre.
Kristen Petty/KANSAN
Jazzing it up
Tyson guilty on three counts
The Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS — Boxer Mike Tyson was found guilty yesterday of raping a Miss Black America contestant who said he lured her to his hotel room and overpowered her.
Tyson faces a maximum prison sentence of 60 years when he is sentenced March 6. He was allowed to remain free on $30,000 bond.
The conviction threatens to end the rags-to-riche career of one of the most prominent athletes of his generation. Tyson, at 20, was the youngest heavyweight champion ever, and had been planning a comeback this spring.
Tyson, 25, was found guilty of all the charges he faced — one count of rape and two counts of criminal deviate conduct.
Each count carries prison sentences ranging from six to 20 years and fines up to $10,000.
Asked what his most effective evidence was, prosecutor Garrison said, "That beautiful 18-year-old kid is the young person with a lot of courage."
The jury deliberated nine hours yesterday after nine days of testimony that they found the evidence to be
Tyson, whose stormy relations with women have been the stuff of tabloid headlines for years, offered an unusual defense—that he was a crude womanizer whose accuser must have known he wanted sex.
He maintained that he was blunt about his desires from the outset and that he had not been a "hateful person."
His accuser testified that the boxer had overpowered her in his hotel room, pinned her on a bed with his forearm, stripped her, raped her and laughed while she cried in pain and begged him to stop.
The incident took place last July 19 before the Miss Black America pageant in Indianapolis.
Besides the accuser, crucial prosecution witnesses included an emergency room doctor who said the woman suffered injuries consistent with rape, and a woman appeared scared and shaken when she emerged from Tyson's hotel.
Eleven pageant contestants testified for the defense, which, ironically, sought to portray Tyson as lewd and obsessed with sex. Many described Tyson's use of crude, sexually explicit language.
Some also said they heard the accuser make comments about his body, intellect and net worth, bolstering a defense argument that she was a gold-wound who concocted a scene of rape of anger for being treated as a one-night stand.
Others told a version of events closer to that of the accuser, who said she never heard the lew remarks and made any suggestive remarks herself.
Race became an issue in the trial, with defense attorneys arguing that the jury pool failed to represent Marion County's racial make-up, which is about 22 percent black.
Three of the 12 jurors chosen were black, but one of them asked to be excused after a fire midway through the trial damaged the hotel where the panel was sequestered.
Past Iowa caucuses
In 1980, President Jimmy Carter got a record 59.1 percent of vote in the Iowa Democratic candidates. Winners and their states of the 1976
1976:
Jimmy Carter
iowa Share What
caucus of happened
winner vote later
27. 6% Won nomination, election success Gerald Ford
1980:
Jimmy Carter
59.1% Won nomination,
in election to Ronald Reagan
1984:
Walter
Mondale
1988:
Richard
Gephardt
48. 9% Won nomination, lost election to Ronald Reagan
31. 3% Lost nomination to Michael Dukakis
SOURCE: Iowa secretary of state's office KRTN
Harkin is undisputed champion in Iowa caucuses
The Associated Press
DES MOINES, Iowa — Sen. Tom Harkin scored an uncontested home-state victory last night in the Iowa caucasus that inaugurated the wide-open 1992 Democratic presidential race. His rivals skipped the event, pointing toward next week's primary showdown in New Hampshire.
Harkin, the most liberal Democrat in a field of five, was gaining almost 80 percent support as he bid for momentum in the tumultuous campaign week to come. He said the results were "far better than I ever imagined," and predicted steady improvement in New Hampshire, where his rivals await.
Republicans waited to test Patrick Buchanan's conservative challenge to President Bush. The Iowa GOP canceled its traditional presidential preference poll, leaving New Hampshire to go first.
Harkin's closest competitor. The other Democrats in the race, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerry, former Sen. Paul Tsongas and former California Gov. Jerry Brown, made no effort even to compete for second place.
Uncommitted delegates were
"It is a non-event," Kerrey aide Jim Priblay said of the Iowa results. "We didn't compete." Party officials predicted the turnout would be a little more than 21,000, about a fifth of the 125,000 who participated four years ago for a hotly competitive race.
The absence of candidates in Iowa means New Hampshire voters will render the first meaningful verdict on the nominating races, and on the various prescriptions for economic revival that have emerged as the dominant issue in the race.
Harkin's rivals spent caucus day in New Hampshire, where the polls indicate a tight race between Clinton and Tsongas. Kerney, Harkin and Brown looked for an opportunity to tap into
the state's large undecided vote
Clinton set the tone for the week ahead, saying he would "fight like hell" to shake off the effects of questions about womanizing and draft dodging, controversies he said were inspired by Republicans. He then flew to New York, for a lucrative evening of fund raising that netted him $725,000.
New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, who declined to enter the race in December, added spice to the Democratic campaign, telling the New York Post he would not "presume to interfere" with a write-in effort on his behalf.
From the start, Iowa was a one-candidate show, a rarity since Jimmy Carter used the caucuses in 1976 as a launching pad to the White House. Customarily, candidates have lavished months of campaigning, and tens of thousands of dollars in television advertising, in the state.
With 89 percent of the state's 2,186 precincts reporting, Harken had 78
percent support. Uncommitted had 12 percent, Tsongas had 4 percent, Clinton and Kerrey had 2 percent, and Brown 1 percent.
in the competition for Iowa's 49 delegates to the Democratic National Convention, Harkin led with 39, with the balance still to be allocated.
Harkin said of his favorite-son victory, "It helps me not only in New Hampshire, but all over the country."
If a caucus televised by C-SPAN from Council Bluffs was any indication, the party sessions were polite minuets of democracy in action. Kerrey supporters sought to entice defections from Harkin, but to no avail. And the politicking, such as it was, lasted less than an hour.
Harkin appealed in advance for a strong showing. "We need to come out smoking," he said in a weekend of campaigning around his state. The results were not surprising for a politician who is the only Democrat in the
state's history to win two full terms to the Senate.
Harkin, the son of a coal miner, grew up poor in a rural town, worked his way through college and law school and spent five years in the Navy in the 1960s. He got his start in politics as a congressional aide, then served 10 years in the House. He won election to the Senate in 1984 and again in 1990.
Yesterday's caucuses marked the first step toward selection of delegates to the Democratic convention, where 2,144 votes are needed to secure the nomination. But at this early stage of the campaign, it was not delegate strength the candidates were after, it was momentum and headlines.
On the Republican side, neither Buchanan nor David Duke made a move against Bush in Iowa. But neither the White House nor the state GOP was in the mood for any surprises, and the presidential preference poll was scrubbed.