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Supreme Court sides with death row inmate in racial discrimination case
| CNN | - |
Washington
(CNN) The Supreme Court ruled Monday morning in favor of a death row
inmate in a case concerning race discrimination in jury selection.
Supreme Court sides with death row inmate in racial discrimination case
Story highlights
- Supreme Court sides with an African-American convicted for a 1987 murder by an all-white jury
- Notes from prosecutors show that potential jurors who were black had a "b" written by their name
Washington (CNN)The
Supreme Court ruled Monday morning in favor of a death row inmate in a
case concerning race discrimination in jury selection.
Do these notes prove lawyers made a jury based on race? 02:09
Timothy
Tyrone Foster, an African-American, is on death row in Georgia for the
1987 murder of an elderly white woman, Queen Madge White. The jury that
convicted him was all white. Twenty years after his sentence his
attorneys obtained notes the prosecution team took while it was engaged
in picking a jury, including marking potential jurors who were black had
a "b" written by their name.
"The
focus on race in the prosecution's file plainly demonstrates a
concerted effort to keep black prospective jurors off the jury," Chief
Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. Justice Clarence
Thomas was the only dissenter.
The 7-1 decision
comes as a welcome relief to critics who say racial discrimination in
jury selection persists across the country some 30 years after the
Supreme Court ruled potential jurors cannot be struck because of race.
The
decision does not vacate Foster's conviction; it opens the door for
Foster to go back to the Georgia state court and argue for a new trial.
The case is likely to cause other inmates across the country with similar claims to come forward and to seek a new trial.
Monday's
ruling can provide "new life to these so-called Batson claims in the
lower courts and the issue of racial bias in jury selection," said Steve
Vladeck, CNN contributor and law professor at American University
Washington College of Law, referring to the 1986 case Batson v. Kentucky.
Foster's
lawyers argued the notes reflect the fact the prosecution illegally
took race into consideration as it struck every potential black juror.
Georgia argued the notes reflect the prosecutors were simply preparing
themselves for a racial bias challenge.
"The
State's new argument today does not dissuade us from the conclusion
that its prosecutors were motivated in substantial part by race,"
Roberts wrote.
"Two peremptory strikes on the basis of race are two more than the Constitution allows," he added.
"This
discrimination became apparent only because we obtained the
prosecution's notes which revealed their intent to discriminate.
Usually that does not happen," said Foster's lead lawyer, Stephen
Bright, from the Southern Center of Human Rights. "The practice of
discriminating in striking juries continues in courtrooms across the
country. Usually courts ignore patterns of race discrimination and
accept false reasons for the strikes."
Thomas dissent
In
his dissent, Thomas argued that the court didn't have the power to
review the Georgia state court decision. Thomas also said he believed
the Supreme Court owed more deference to the lower court's ruling that
prosecutors had race-neutral reasons for striking specific jurors.
In
his view, "The Court today invites state prisoners to go searching for
new 'evidence' by demanding the files of the prosecutors who long ago
convicted them . ...I cannot go along with that 'sort of sandbagging of
state courts.' New evidence should not justify the relitigation of
Batson claims," Thomas wrote.
"Even
in the face of overwhelming evidence of racial bias on the part of the
prosecutors, Justice Thomas still would have deferred to the state
court's conclusion that there was no unconstitutional discrimination,"
Vladeck said.
"The notion that, as
Justice Thomas suggested, it is 'flabbergasting' that newly discovered
evidence could prove racial bias on the part of prosecutors is itself
flabbergasting, especially given the facts of this case, and an
alarmingly deferential view for a Supreme Court justice to take,"
Vladeck added.
What the prosecutor's notes showed
White
was a 79-year-old retired elementary school teacher who lived alone. In
court papers, the state said Foster "broke her jaw, coated her face
with talcum powder, sexually molested her with a salad-dressing bottle
and strangled her to death."
Nearly
20 years after the conviction, through an open records request,
Foster's lawyers obtained the notes the prosecution team took while it
was engaged in the process of picking a jury.
Foster's
lawyers said the notes reflect that the prosecution illegally took race
into consideration as it struck every potential black juror.
"We have an arsenal of smoking guns in this case," Bright told the justices at oral arguments.
"The
prosecutors in this case came to court on the morning of jury selection
determined to strike all the black prospective jurors," Bright said.
"Blacks were taken out of the picture here, they were taken and dealt
with separately."
Beth A. Burton,
Georgia's Deputy Attorney General told the justices that the
prosecutors at the time were anticipating future challenges from
Foster's team and that is why they highlighted information concerning
black jurors and prepared race-neutral explanations for the strikes.
The
notes, released in court filings, were taken as the legal teams
prepared to pick a jury. Each side was granted "peremptory challenges"
that allowed them to dismiss potential jurors without explanation. But
Supreme Court precedent -- reaffirmed in 1986 -- says, however, that
jurors cannot be struck because of their race.
In
the Foster case, the state and the defense used their peremptory
strikes to reduce the pool to 12 jurors and four alternates. The state
struck the four black potential jurors.
One
set of documents from the prosecution files shows that potential jurors
who were black had a "B" written by their name and their names
highlighted with a green pen. On some juror questionnaire sheets, the
juror's race "black," "color" or "negro" was circled. One juror, Eddie
Hood, was labeled "B #1. Others were labeled B#2, and B#3.
Another
set of the prosecution notes contains a coded key to identify race.
There is a list of six "definite no's" --the top five are black.
The
Supreme Court's 1986 case held that once a defendant has produced
enough evidence to raise an inference that the state impermissibly
excluded a juror based on race, the state must come forward with a
race-neutral explanation for the exclusion.
According
to Bright, the states' race-neutral justifications didn't hold up. For
example, the prosecution said one reason it struck a 34-year-old black
woman was that she was near the age of Foster.
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