Hi, random question but im wondering from your experience how much of a problem jury prejudice tends to be for transgender defendants?
I have not ever taken a trans client to a jury trial. My first jurisdiction was a combo of a very large rural county and a small cutesy historic city with a little university. If you weren't on meth, you had a decent shot at avoiding police attention entirely.
My current jurisdiction is right next to one of the biggest cities in the state. And by 'right next to' I mean the thing where you can transition from one jurisdiction to another accidentally several times while driving from place to place. We're very much part of the same urban sprawl. I'd be a lot less worried here.
To be more detailed about how less worried I'd be:
Whether something is a Problem in a jury trial kind of has three parts. Pre-existing prejudice from the jury, our ability to screen out that pre-existing prejudice, and relationship to the charge itself.
In an urban jurisdiction, you will have less pre-existing prejudice to contend with.
But, in a rural jurisdiction, you will have an easier time screening out that prejudice. Why? Because it's more socially acceptable to have it, so when you get to ask the jury some questions (voir dire) then people are more likely to speak up about it and agree with each other.
Still, a good attorney can mitigate a lot of that by asking good voir dire questions. I just woke up and I've spent like 4 minutes thinking about this, but I think I'd try to get something out like "This case will have individuals in it who are transgender. Does anyone here have religious objections to using a transgender person's preferred name and pronouns? Does anyone think that a transgender person might be more likely to lie than someone who isn't transgender?"
I'd also test out the defense on them, and start the process of separating "transgender" from "criminal defendant," emphasizing that the alleged crime had nothing to do with that, if I could. "No matter what you think about transgender folks, do y'all agree that in America everyone has the right to self-defense?"
What would get tricky, I think, is relationship of being transgender to the charge in question, like if the accused crime was sexual in nature. Then you have an extra hill of prejudice to overcome. If the accusation seems to come from transphobia itself, YIKES. I'd spend the trial praying for the complaining witness to say something really obviously stupid and transphobic.
In my experience, though, often jurors, despite not wanting to be there, do actually want to do a good and fair job. They are more skeptical about evidence and police than judges are, because the police inevitably disappoint their expectations. I'd spend some time in voir dire basically telling them, through questions, not to get caught up in group hysteria and remember that this is about what happened in THIS case, not about politics.
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