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So how important is the “of your peers” part of the jury selection in these examples?
George Zimmerman was acquitted by 5 middle-aged white women and 1 middle-aged latino woman, so it seems kind of ludicrous by that measure. Why not just call that jury “6 people the defense managed to have present who were chosen for their likely sympathy towards the defendant” for how little they resemble the “peers” qualifier.
I haven’t followed that case as closely as some people, but wasn’t it the prosecution that was pushing for older women to play the “what if it was your kid?” card? I do remember hearing a lot about how outraged the kid’s mother was that someone shot him while he was in the middle of assaulting them, or something like that.