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: Grits for Breakfast

Odds and Ends

Here are a handful of odds and ends that merit Grits readers attention:Third Court of Appeals reducing backogAfter lagging behind other courts in case backlogs for years, under its new chief justice Austin's 3rd Court of Appeals is making a dent in its older cases. The 8th Court of Appeals out of El Paso now has the longest delays.Batson not just an issue in old casesRacial discrimination in jury selection by Dallas prosecutors continued at least until 2002, according to a ruling by a federal appeals court. Judge Catarina Haynes ruled in a so-called Batson challenge that "the state's reasons for striking [black jurors] ... were implausible or invalid, and therefore were pretexts for discrimination." What's more, the story mentions "a 2005 investigation by The Dallas Morning News that found prosecutors excluded blacks from juries at twice the rate they excluded whites...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on January 26, 2010 (boomark / email).