Prosecutors get a warning about race factor in juries

One black murder suspect in Texas had a jury with only one black member.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court warned prosecutors Monday to use care in striking minorities from juries, siding with black murder suspects in Texas and California who contended their juries had been unfairly stacked with whites.
Justice Clarence Thomas, the only black member of the high court, voted against both suspects, including the Texas inmate whose death sentence was overturned.
The court used the cases to bolster its landmark 1986 decision barring prosecutors from disqualifying potential jurors based on their race.
"The court is sending a very strong message that racial discrimination in jury selection is not to be tolerated," said Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights.
Justice Stephen Breyer suggested a radical change in the way juries are picked. He said that the only way to get discrimination out of jury selection may be to stop letting prosecutors and defense lawyers dismiss some potential jurors without giving a reason. That suggestion was made by the late Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice, and Justice Breyer seemed to launch a campaign for it.
The rulings, in the final three weeks of the Supreme Court's term, came in appeals filed by indigent black inmates in Texas and California.
The cases
In the Texas case, the court ordered a new trial for death row inmate Thomas Miller-El, who had been convicted for the 1985 murder of a 25-year-old Dallas motel clerk. It was the second time the justices had reviewed his case.
Justice David H. Souter, writing the 6-3 decision, said there was strong evidence of prejudice during jury selection. He noted that black jurors were questioned more aggressively about the death penalty, and the pool was "shuffled" at least twice by prosecutors, apparently to increase the chances whites would be selected.
"At least two of the jury shuffles conducted by the state make no sense except as efforts to delay consideration of black jury panelists," Justice Souter said, adding that it "blinks reality" to deny jurors were struck because they were black.
Justice Souter was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Breyer.
Miller-El contends that Dallas County prosecutors had a long history of excluding blacks from juries and pointed to training manuals that were distributed to prosecutors from the 1960s into the early 1980s. The manuals advised prosecutors to remove blacks or Jews from death penalty juries on the theory that those groups would be more sympathetic to criminal defendants.
At trial, Miller-El was convicted by a 12-member jury that included one black. Prosecutors struck down 10 of the 11 blacks eligible to serve.
Justice Thomas issued a 36-page dissent, which was longer than Justice Souter's opinion, arguing that Texas prosecutors had offered enough evidence that exclusions were made for reasons other than race.
"In view of the evidence actually presented to the Texas courts, their conclusion that the state did not discriminate was eminently reasonable," Justice Thomas wrote in an opinion joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia.