TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Amelia Ferrell Knisely on May 23, 2016

The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled in favor of a black death-row inmate's claim of racial bias in jury selection. The 7-1 verdict, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, said prosecutors unconstitutionally barred all potential black jurors from the Georgia man’s trial nearly 30 years ago. Defense attorneys later discovered the bias through a series of prosecution notes obtained through an open-records request. USA Today notes that this happened one year after the court’s landmark 1986 ruling in Batson v. Kentucky that declared such actions unconstitutional.