The Supreme Court won't stop racial discrimination in capital trials.//SLATE

Christianity began as a protest movement against an unjust execution.  But once it became the state religion of the Roman Empire in 314 A.D. - when Constantine's troops went into battle under the sign of the cross attitudes changed.  Today we have five conservative Catholics on the Supreme Court plus one who fell off the curb into the Anglican Church (Neil Gorsuch).  Though their churches firmly oppose the death penalty they all voted without opinion to let stand a Texas order of execution.  The defendant was denied a fair trial - the judge had reused to strike a juror who admitted to acial violence. - GWC

 

The Supreme Court won't stop racial discrimination in capital trials.

By Mark Joseph Stern //

On Monday, the Supreme Court turned away an appeal from a Black man named Kristopher Love, whose death sentence was tainted by a juror’s racism. By a 6 - 3 vote, the conservative majority refused to enforce precedents protecting capital defendants from racial bias, saving itself the trouble of formally overruling them. Once again, the Supreme Court exercised its power to change the law by doing nothing, furthering its quest to subvert the normal operation of law and speed up executions in America.

Racism pervades every aspect of the death penalty, but it’s not often as obvious as it was at Love’s 2018 trial. Love’s attorneys asked prospective jurors whether they believe that some races “tend to be more violent than others” in an attempt to smoke out illicit bias. One juror, Zachary Niesman—who is white—answered “yes,” elaborating: “Statistics show more violent crimes are committed by certain races. I believe in statistics.”

Love v. Texas

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21-5050_3dq3.pdf

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES KRISTOPHER LOVE v. TEXAS 

ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TEXAS 

No. 21–5050. Decided April 18, 2022 The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied. 

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE BREYER and JUSTICE KAGAN join, dissenting from the denial of summary vacatur. 

Racial bias is “odious in all aspects,” but “especially pernicious in the administration of justice.” Buck v. Davis, 580 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) (slip op., at 22) (internal quotation marks omitted). When racial bias infects a jury in a capital case, it deprives a defendant of his right to an impartial tribunal in a life-or-death context, and it “‘poisons public confidence’ in the judicial process.” Ibid. The seating of a racially biased juror, therefore, can never be harmless. As with other forms of disqualifying bias, if even one racially biased juror is empaneled and the death penalty is imposed, “the State is disentitled to execute the sentence,” Morgan v. Illinois, 504 U. S. 719, 729 (1992). 

In this case, petitioner Kristopher Love, a Black man, claims that one of the jurors in his capital trial was racially biased because the juror asserted during jury selection that “[n]on-white” races were statistically more violent than the white race. 29 Record 145. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals never considered Love’s claim on the merits. Instead, relying on an inapposite state-law rule, the court concluded that any error was harmless because Love had been provided with two extra peremptory strikes earlier in the jury selection proceeding, which he had used before the juror at issue was questioned. That decision was plainly erroneous.