When lawyers in Cedric Hobbs Jr.’s 2014 death penalty trial in Cumberland County, North Carolina, began picking a jury, the pool was 50 percent black. By the time the trial began, there were only two black people on the jury. When the defense accused prosecutors of racial discrimination in the selection process, they acted indignant. “Somehow we’re just racists in this county,” one told the judge.

Study after study has shown that all-white juries are harsher on black defendants, make more errors, and discuss fewer of the case facts. And all-white juries, like in the case of Emmett Till, have historically been problematic. But they also aren’t a thing of the past.

The U.S. Supreme Court wrestles with a problem that has long plagued the criminal justice system: race discrimination in the selection of jurors.