TIMOTHY TYRONE FOSTER, a black man, sits on Georgia’s death row for killing an elderly white woman in 1986. When jurors were being vetted to hear Mr Foster’s case, prosecutors struck all five African Americans from the jury pool. Four of those strikes came via “peremptory challenges”, tools by which lawyers can nix potential jurors without having to cite a reason. In his closing argument, the prosecutor told the all-white jury that sentencing Mr Foster to die would “deter other people out there in the projects”—public housing blocks populated mainly by African Americans.
Overt racism in jury selection has been illegal in America since the Strauder v West Virginia ruling in 1880. But lawyers continue to strike blacks from juries at suspiciously high rates, as an amicus brief in Foster v Chatman—a case the Supreme Court heard on November 2nd—details. In North Carolina, a state court found in 2012 that in 173 capital cases, 52.8% of potential black jurors were cut,...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/1OlNDd3
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