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101 N.Y.U. L. Rev. Online 1 (2026)

handle is hein.journals/nyulro101 and id is 1 raw text is: UNLOCKING PENA-RODRIGUEZ'S PROMISE DANIEL S. HARAWA* It is not often that the Supreme Court creates constitutionally required exceptions to established evidentiary rules. For that reason, when the Court created a racial bias exception to the centuries-old no-impeachment rule in Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado, the decision was billed as a significant step in addressing racial bias injury deliberations. But nearly a decade later, the decision has fallen far short of its promise. This Essay explains why. This Essay argues that two structural impediments juror non-disclosure instructions and no-contact rules-combine to make juror racial bias effectively undetectable and as a result, irremediable. Recognizing that relaxing no-contact rules or instructing jurors to report bias each comes with serious tradeoffs, this Essay does not propose a single reform. Instead it calls on trial courts to serve as laboratories of racial justice, experimenting with locally tailored approaches to surface juror racial prejudice while balancing competing values. Ultimately, if the legal system is committed to ensuring defendants are judged for what they are accused of and not the color of their skin, courts must confront not only the substance of bias but also the hidden procedural barriers that keep it from ever coming to light. INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................2 I. WHEN EVIDENCE RULES AND THE CONSTITUTION COLLIDE.............6 A. The Right to Present a Defense ...................................................7 B. The Right to Confrontation .........................................................9 C. The Right to Face Trial Free from Racial Bias ........................11 II. PENA-RODRIGUEZ'S LIMITED IMPACT .............................................13 A. The Black Box Problem .............................................................14 B. Non-Disclosure Instructions .....................................................19 C. No-Contact Rules ......................................................................21 III. UNCOVERING JUROR BIAS................................................................24 A. RewritingNon-Disclosure Instructions.....................................25 B. Relaxing or Eliminating No-Contact Rules...............................28 IV. TRIAL COURTS AS LABORATORIES OF RACIAL JUSTICE ..................33 CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................37 * Copyright © 2026 by Daniel S. Harawa, Professor of Law, New York University School of Law. Thank you to Ty Alper, Alexis Hoag-Fordjour, Alex Nunn, Anna Roberts, and Andrea Roth for feedback on earlier drafts. Danielle Miles-Langaigne and Samantha Santoro provided invaluable research assistance. Many thanks to the New York University Law Review editors for their work on the piece. Mistakes are my own.