A judge presiding over the carjacking trial of two African-American men should have immediately removed a white juror after she expressed concern and nervousness about seeing black men in her neighborhood, a New Jersey appeals court ruled Aug. 31.
The three-judge Appellate Division panel also had harsh words for the trial judge, Union County Superior Court Judge Joseph Donohue, whom it said, in effect, acknowledged to the jury that racial prejudice in a juror was an “unavoidable reality of life.”
