Court: Racial bias in Ga. jury picks
Biting opinion admonishes prosecutors, judges
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court rebuked Georgia prosecutors and judges Monday for having excluded black citizens from the murder trial of a black defendant and then denying his claims of racial bias even after stark new evidence was revealed.
In an unusually biting opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts said it was “nonsense” and “not credible” for prosecutors to claim they acted for legitimate reasons when they struck several blacks from the jury pool. For example, a prosecutor said one black juror was excluded because his son was convicted of “basically the same thing” as the defendant, who was charged with rape and murder. In fact, the man’s son had been given a suspended sentence five years earlier for stealing hubcaps.
Roberts said the evidence “plainly demonstrates a concerted effort to keep black prospective jurors off the jury.”
The 7-1 decision overturned the Georgia Supreme Court and told its judges to consider whether a new trial is warranted in the nearly 30-year-old case of Timothy Tyrone Foster. He was convicted of strangling a 79-year-old white woman in Rome, Ga., and sentenced to death.
The high court did not announce a new legal rule or even say precisely what should happen next in Foster’s case. But the chief justice’s opinion sends a warning to judges that they have a duty to watch over prosecutors when juries are being selected.
Typically in criminal trials, both the prosecutor and the defense lawyer are permitted to strike an equal number of potential jurors based on a suspicion that those people will not view their case favorably. The notion is that those “peremptory strikes” will lead to a panel of jurors who can fairly decide the defendant’s guilt or innocence.
But in 1986, the high court announced a new rule and said potential jurors may not be excluded because of their race. In Batson v. Kentucky, the justices told trial judges to question prosecutors if it appeared they were systematically striking blacks from juries.
Those so-called Batson challenges are a regular feature of trials. But the system has many critics. It depends on the honesty of prosecutors and the willingness of trial judges to probe the reasons for excluding particular jurors.
Stephen Bright, a prominent defense attorney and president of the Southern Center for Human Rights, appealed Foster’s case to the high court after notes in the prosecutors’ files revealed the potential jurors had been marked and coded by race.
He applauded Monday’s ruling and said it will lead to a new trial for Foster.
But he also noted this was the rare case where the prosecutors’ notes revealed racial bias.
“Usually that does not happen,” Bright said. “The practice of discriminating in striking jurors continues in courtrooms across the country.
Usually courts ignore the patterns of race discrimination and accept false reasons for the strikes.