Death row inmate wins racial bias claim in Supreme Court

The Supreme Court gave an African- American prisoner on Georgia’s death row new life Monday by ruling that prosecutors unconstitutionally barred potential black jurors from his trial nearly 30 years ago.

The 7- 1 verdict, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, reversed state courts that had denied Timothy Foster’s claim of racial bias in jury selection during his trial for the murder of an elderly white woman in 1986.

The ruling is likely to fuel contentions from death penalty opponents that capital punishment is racially discriminatory. It also could impact the way prosecutors, defense attorneys and trial judges handle jury selection.

What brought Foster’s case back to court after three decades was a series of prosecution notes obtained by defense lawyers through an open records request. While jurors were being picked, prosecutors highlighted the names of African Americans, circled the word “black” on questionnaires and added notations such as “B# 1” and “B# 2.” On a sheet labeled “definite NO’s,” they put the last five blacks in the jury pool on top and ranked them in case “it comes down to having to pick one of the black jurors.”

That happened a year after the Supreme Court declared such actions unconstitutional. Civil rights groups say discriminatory practices in jury selection have survived for 30 years despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in Batson v. Kentucky in 1986.

In Monday’s case, Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s lone African- American member, cast the lone dissent. He warned that the ruling “invites state prisoners to go searching for new ‘ evidence’ by demanding the files of the prosecutors who long ago convicted them.”

Georgia officials told the court prosecutors had expected to be accused of racial discrimination, so they singled out potential black jurors in their notes and listed several race- neutral reasons for opposing each one. Deputy Attorney General Beth Burton acknowledged in November that the prosecutors’ notes “can be interpreted in two ways.”

The finding that Foster’s constitutional rights were violated gives him a clear path to a new trial. Justice Samuel Alito wrote separately to argue that Georgia’s courts could deny him by asserting that prior rulings were based on state, not federal, law.

AP