Stephen Bright, teaching Yale's course on Capital Punishment: Race, Poverty, and Disadvantage, examines the peremptory strike, the tool that lets prosecutors and defense attorneys remove a set number of prospective jurors without giving a reason. Bright traces how this power has historically been used to keep Black and other minority jurors off juries, particularly in capital cases in the South, and walks through the Supreme Court's attempts to police the practice, including the doctrine requiring a race-neutral explanation once a pattern of exclusion is challenged. He weighs whether that legal test actually stops discriminatory strikes or simply teaches lawyers to supply plausible cover stories for decisions still driven by race. The segment draws on real capital trial records and case law to make the argument concrete, treating jury composition as a hinge point where formal equality before the law and its practical administration can pull apart.