The People of the State of Colorado v. Reginald Keith Clark

Central City, Colorado criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with second degree kidnapping, sexual assault with a deadly weapon, sexual assault caused by threat of imminent harm, and sexual assault achieved through the application of force.

Reginald Keith Clark, a Black man, was charged with multiple crimes arising from his alleged sexual assault of A.B., a white woman. He faced trial in Gilpin County, an area that is predominantly white.[1] During voir dire, a venire member made comments that Clark believed evinced racial bias. Clark moved to strike the juror for cause, but the trial court denied the challenge, concluding that the juror's statements expressed a political view and did not indicate that he could not be fair. Clark later removed the juror using a peremptory challenge. Thus, the juror did not sit on the jury.



Racial discrimination, while detestable in any context, is "especially pernicious" in the criminal justice system. Rose v. Mitchell, 443 U.S. 545, 555 (1979). "[S]uch discrimination 'not only violates our Constitution and the laws enacted under it but is at war with our basic concepts of a democratic society and a representative government.'" Id. at 556 (quoting Smith v. Texas, 311 U.S. 128, 130 (1940)). Criminal defendants have the right to an impartial jury, U.S. Const. amend. VI; Colo. Const. art. II, § 16, which includes the right to be tried by jurors who can consider the case without the influence of racial animus, Georgia v. McCollum, 505 U.S. 42, 58 (1992). The jury, after all, is meant to be "a criminal defendant's fundamental 'protection of life and liberty against rac[ial] . . . prejudice.'" Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado, 580 U.S. 206, 223 (2017) (quoting McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 310 (1987)).



Procedures for preventing biased jurors from serving are critical to the protection of the defendant's right to an impartial jury. McCollum, 505 U.S. at 58. In Colorado, judges must dismiss for cause jurors who "evinc[e] enmity or bias toward the defendant or the state." § 16-10-103(1)(j), C.R.S. (2023). Where a trial court's erroneous denial of a challenge for cause results in seating a juror who is biased against the defendant, the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury is violated, and the conviction must be reversed.



If, however, a juror evinces racial bias during voir dire but does not ultimately serve on the jury, no Sixth Amendment violation has occurred.

Clark was convicted and appealed on multiple grounds.



We conclude that the erroneous denial of a for-cause challenge to a juror who evinces racial bias against the defendant is not structural error where the error was made in good faith and the biased juror did not actually participate in the jury. In addition, we conclude that a juror's statement during deliberations recalling a judge's alleged comment during her prior jury service was not extraneous prejudicial information under CRE 606(b). Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.