Caddo Parish, Louisiana, known nation­al­ly for its aggres­sive pur­suit of the death penal­ty, has elect­ed its first black District Attorney. In a November 21 runoff elec­tion con­duct­ed against the back­drop of con­tro­ver­sial remarks about the death penal­ty by the cur­rent DA and a threat­ened civ­il rights law­suit over sys­temic racial dis­crim­i­na­tion by Caddo Parish pros­e­cu­tors in jury selec­tion, for­mer judge James E. Stewart, Sr. defeat­ed cur­rent Caddo Parish pros­e­cu­tor Dhu Thompson, 55% to 45%. Ten days before the elec­tion, the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center announced that it intends to sue Caddo Parish over the District Attorney’s office’s prac­tice of strik­ing black cit­i­zens from juries at three times the rate of oth­er jurors. James Craig, co-direc­tor of the New Orleans-based non-prof­it law cen­ter, called the racial­ly-biased jury strikes ​“a blight on our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.” A recent study by the human rights group Reprieve Australia had revealed that Caddo pros­e­cu­tors used peremp­to­ry strikes against 46% of black jurors but only 15% of oth­er jurors. (Click image to enlarge.) The study showed that Thompson’s exer­cise of juror chal­lenges was even more racial­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate, strik­ing more than half of all prospec­tive black jurors but few­er than 1 in 6 of all oth­er jurors. Craig said that the announce­ment of the suit was not intend­ed to influ­ence the elec­tion: ​“This is not a prob­lem of one per­son. This is a cul­ture that needs to be acknowl­edged and changed…In the absence of con­crete, spe­cif­ic changes in the office’s cul­ture and approach to jury selec­tion, this prac­tice will con­tin­ue under the admin­is­tra­tion of either of the two final can­di­dates for dis­trict attor­ney. For this rea­son, no mat­ter who pre­vails in the spe­cial elec­tion this month, the MacArthur Justice Center will pro­ceed with the fed­er­al civ­il rights law­suit that we are prepar­ing to file.” The suit is seek­ing an injunc­tion to block prac­tices that result in under-rep­re­sen­ta­tion of blacks on juries. In his elec­tion-night vic­to­ry remarks, Stewart pledged ​“to bring pro­fes­sion­al­ism and ethics back to the dis­trict attorney’s office.” 

(A. Burris, ​“Caddo DA office fac­ing fed­er­al civ­il rights law­suit,” Shreveport Times, November 13, 2015; A. Aguillard, ​“Days before elec­tion, Caddo Parish DA accused of vio­lat­ing black jurors’ rights,” Louisiana Record, November 16, 2015; A. Burris, ​“Stewart wins Caddo DA race,” Shreveport Times, November 22, 2015.) See Race and Arbitrariness.

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