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Ninth Circuit Protects Racist Prosecutor

Today the Ninth Circuit granted habeas relief based on a Batson claim.  Green v. LaMarque, No. 06-16254 (9th Cir. July 21, 2008) (opinion).  According to the panel, a prosecutor discriminated against African Americans during jury selection:While selecting a jury for a criminal trial in Alameda County, California, the prosecutor used peremptory challenges to exclude from the jury all six African-Americans on the jury panel. The African-American defendant claimed the prosecutor based such challenges on race. The prosecutor then offered race-neutral reasons which, we now conclude, also applied to unchallenged white jurors. This disparity in treatment convinces us the non-racial reasons claimed by the prosecutor were pretexts. Because the elimination of even a single juror due to race taints the trial, we reverse the district court?s denial of the writ of habeas corpus...continue to full post

Full post as published by Crime & Federalism on July 21, 2008 (boomark / email).