U.S. Supreme Court Orders Reconsideration of Three Cases in Light of Jury Selection Decision

The U.S. Supreme Court grant­ed writs of cer­tio­rari in three jury dis­crim­i­na­tion cas­es on June 20, vacat­ing each of them and direct­ing state courts in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana to recon­sid­er the issue in light of the Court’s recent deci­sion in Foster v. Chatman. Two of the peti­tion­ers, Curtis Flowers of Mississippi and Christopher Floyd of Alabama, are cur­rent­ly on death row. The third, Jabari Williams, was con­vict­ed in Louisiana of sec­ond-degree mur­der. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court grant­ed Timothy Foster a new tri­al because pros­e­cu­tors ille­gal­ly exclud­ed blacks from his jury. Flowers, Floyd, and Williams all raised issues of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in jury selec­tion that were rebuffed in the state courts. As in Foster’s case, the pros­e­cu­tor’s notes in Floyd reflect race-con­scious jury strikes. Floyd’s pros­e­cu­tor marked African American poten­tial jurors with a ​“B” on its list of jurors to remove, then struck 10 of 11 black prospec­tive jurors. Flowers has been tried six times. His first two con­vic­tions were over­turned because of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, and his third as a result of racial bias in jury selec­tion. His fourth tri­al end­ed in a mis­tri­al and his fifth tri­al result­ed in a hung jury. At his most recent tri­al, eleven white jurors and one black juror con­vict­ed him after just 30 min­utes of delib­er­a­tion. The Equal Justice Initiative, which rep­re­sents Floyd, released a state­ment say­ing, ​“Racial bias has been a long­stand­ing prob­lem in Alabama, where more than two dozen cas­es have been reversed after courts found that pros­e­cu­tors engaged in inten­tion­al racial dis­crim­i­na­tion dur­ing jury selec­tion.” EJI Executive Director, Bryan Stevenson, said racial bias in jury selec­tion ​“under­mines the integri­ty of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.” He told the Montgomery Advertiser, ​“What we’ve found is regard­less of the race of the defen­dant, a lot of pros­e­cu­tors appear not to trust black peo­ple in juries, which is ille­gal and unconstitutional.”

(Flowers v. Mississippi, No. 14 – 10486, June 20, 2016; B. Lyman, ​“U.S. Supreme Court orders review of Alabama mur­der case,” Montgomery Advertiser, June 20, 2016; ​“U.S. SUPREME COURT REVERSES ANOTHER ALABAMA DEATH PENALTY CASE,” Equal Justice Initiative, June 20, 2016; P. Alexander, ​“For Curtis Flowers, Mississippi Is Still Burning,” Rolling Stone, August 7, 2013.) See Race and U.S. Supreme Court.