In 1986, the United States Supreme Court held in Batson v. Kentucky that the Equal Protection Clause bars a state from challenging jurors based solely on their race or on the assumption that African American jurors as a group would be unable to impartially consider the state’s case. Earlier in 1986, the New Jersey Supreme Court in State v. Gilmore barred bias-based challenges, relying on New Jersey’s constitutional protection of freedom from discrimination, the right to a jury trial and the right to an impartial jury drawn from a representative cross-section of the community.

The United States Supreme Court in its 1991 Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co. Inc. case extended Batson, holding that the same equal protection rights of excluded jurors are violated when race-based challenges are made in civil trials. In the Appellate Division’s 1995 Russell v. Rutgers Health Plan, basing its decision on the Gilmore criteria, the court also held that race-neutral peremptory challenges apply also in civil cases.