Hernandez v. New York

Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352 (1991), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held that a prosecutor may dismiss jurors who are bilingual in Spanish and English from juries that will consider Spanish-language testimony.

Peremptory challenges are used to remove jurors thought to be undesirable for virtually any reason by either side in a court case. However, in Batson v. Kentucky (1986), the Supreme Court ruled that peremptory challenges may not be used to remove jurors because of their race. In Hernandez, the Supreme Court had to decide whether the peremptory exclusion of two Hispanic jurors was tantamount to exclusion because of race—and therefore violated the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution.

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Hernandez v. New York

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 500
• List of United States Supreme Court cases
• Lists of United States Supreme Court cases by volume
• List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Rehnquist Court
• Hernandez v. Texas (1954)

Further reading

• Perea, Juan F. (2001). "The New American Spanish War: How the Courts and the Legislatures Are Aiding the Suppression of Languages Other Than English". In Dueñas Gonzalez, Roseann; Melis, Ildikó. Language Ideologies: Critical Perspectives on the Official English Movement. Mahwah, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates. pp. 121–139. ISBN 0-8058-4054-0. 
• Soltero, Carlos R. (2006). "Hernandez v. New York (1991) and the exclusion of bilingual jurors". Latinos and American Law: Landmark Supreme Court Cases. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. pp. 157–170. ISBN 0-292-71411-4. 
• Montoya, M. (2000). Silence and Silencing: Their Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces in Legal Communication, Pedagogy and Discourse. Michigan Journal of Race & Law. Vol 5:847-911.

External links

• Oral argument audio at the OYEZ Project