Justices Cite Possible Bias in Voiding Texas Murder Verdict
WASHINGTON, June 13 - The Supreme Court ruled today in favor of a Texas death row inmate for the second time, declaring this time that the defendant was entitled to a new trial because of possible racial bias in the selection of his jury.
In a 6-to-3 decision, the justices overturned the conviction of Thomas Miller-El, who had been found guilty of shooting to death a hotel clerk during a 1985 robbery in Dallas. In so doing, the majority chided Texas prosecutors, as well as the federal appeals court that reviews Texas cases.
Justice David H. Souter, writing for the majority, said the prosecution's explanation for excluding blacks from Mr. Miller-El's jury "reeks of afterthought" and that some of the questions that prosecutors used to weed out prospective black jurors "might fairly be called trickery."
Indeed, the justices in the majority found, the jury-selection process early in 1986 was "replete with evidence that the prosecutors were selecting and rejecting potential jurors because of race." The majority said that at least one black who was excluded had voiced "unwavering support" for the death penalty, and thus would have made an ideal juror for the prosecution - except for his race.
Mr. Miller-El was found guilty of binding and shooting two hotel clerks in the course of a holdup. The clerk who survived was left paralyzed below his chest.
The case of Mr. Miller-El, who is black, has been closely followed for years, in part because Texas puts to death far more defendants than any other state, and because of the state's admitted record of racial discrimination in the past. And the case is highly unusual because it has been reviewed twice by the Supreme Court, each time prompting the tribunal to sharply criticize the lower courts.
In February 2003, the Supreme Court ruled, 8 to 1, that Mr. Miller-El had shown enough evidence of bias in the makeup of his jury to at least entitle him to a hearing before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which had earlier dismissed his claim.
That New Orleans-based court obeyed the order to reconsider the defendant's claim - and promptly dismissed it again, embracing the language of the lone dissenter in the 2003 decision, Justice Clarence Thomas.
When the case reached the Supreme Court for the second time, last December, the actual merits of Mr. Miller-El's bias claim were before the justices, some of whom expressed skepticism that the prosecutions' rejection of 10 of 11 prospective black jurors had nothing to do with bias.
Seth P. Waxman, who was the solicitor general of the United States during the Clinton administration, represented Mr. Miller-El and offered documentation of racial discrimination in the Dallas prosecutor's office, including signs that the two prosecutors who picked the jury for Mr. Miller-El's case had engaged in improper racial discrimination in the mid-1980's.
Mr. Miller-El's claim before the Supreme Court in Miller-El v. Dretke, No. 03-9659 was based on the tribunal's landmark ruling in 1986 that the use of peremptory challenges to shape a jury on a basis that appears to be racial is presumed to be unconstitutional unless the prosecution can give a reason unrelated to race.
Justice Souter was among the most skeptical justices at the Dec. 6 arguments. He asked lawyers for the state if Texas could offer any convincing indication that its history of discrimination was irrelevant. "Is it plausible to think there had been this change of heart" in the handling of Mr. Miller-El's case? he wanted to know.
In finding otherwise, the majority said today, that the Fifth Circuit's finding amounted to a "dismissive and strained interpretation" of evidence presented by the defense. Two years ago, the justices rebuked the Fifth Circuit with virtually identical language.
Besides Justice Souter, those in the majority today were Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Arthur M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
Justice Breyer wrote a separate opinion asserting that perhaps the only way to eliminate racial bias in peremptory challenges to prospective jurors (that is, challenges not based on specific facts) is to eliminate peremptory challenges altogether, as Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote in the 1986 decision, Batson v. Kentucky.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the dissent today . He noted that the jury that convicted the defendant was made up of seven white women, two white men, a black man, a Filipino man and a Hispanic man.
In the nearly 20 years that the case has been up and down the judicial ladder, "seven state and six federal judges have reviewed the evidence and found no error," Justice Thomas wrote, in an opinion joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia.
The dissenters said there were many plausible explanations other than bias for the makeup of the jury. To tar the modern-day prosecutors because of the admitted history of bias in earlier decades "is nothing more than guilt by association that is unsupported by the record," they maintained.
Some of the defense's assertions about racial bias were "the antithesis of clear and convincing evidence," Justice Thomas wrote. One black who was excused from the jury had a brother with a prison record and several drug convictions, offering the prosecutors a logical and "race-neutral reason" not to seat him, Justice Thomas said.
"The majority simply assumes that all Dallas County prosecutors were racist and remained that way through the mid-1980's," the justice wrote.
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Brett Coomer/Associated Press Thomas Miller-El challenged his conviction for the 1985 murder of a 25-year-old Dallas motel clerk. |
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