Posted on 08/14/2005 6:22:24 AM PDT by Shawndell Green
Racial makeup of jury that convicted Miller-El renews concerns about discrimination
DALLAS - A Supreme Court decision citing racial discrimination during trial provided Thomas Miller-El, convicted or murder, an opportunity to leave Texas' death row after 20 years, but Dallas prosecutors will try to prevent that by retrying him.
Dallas District Attorney Bill Hill says the high court's decision in June doesn't question the guilt of Miller-El, a black defendant accused of killing a white hotel clerk and wounding another during a robbery. His office says the state will again seek the death penalty.
Prosecutors have until late November to set a new trial date for Miller-El or risk his release, a federal appeals court ruled in July.
One black jury member Miller-El's attorney Jim Marcus said his client retains the presumption of innocence "until proven guilty in a constitutionally fair trial."
Miller-El was sentenced to death row in 1986 by a 12-member jury that included one black. Prosecutors struck 10 of the 11 blacks eligible to serve.
The Supreme Court overturned Miller-El's conviction, citing a manual written in 1969 by Jon Sparling, a top assistant to longtime Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade, and used until at least 1980. It instructed prosecutors on how to exclude minorities from Texas juries. Supreme Court Justice David Souter called racial discrimination in Dallas County's jury selection unquestionable.
"If anything more is needed for an undeniable explanation of what was going on, history supplies it," Souter wrote in the 6-3 decision. "The prosecutors took their cues from a 20-year-old manual of tips on jury selection, as shown by their notes of the race of each potential juror."
Batson v. Kentucky Though racial discrimination in selecting jurors has long been federally prohibited, it was harder to prove before the 1986 Batson v. Kentucky ruling, which was bolstered by Miller-El. Before Batson, no reasons had to be provided for using peremptory strikes.
The ruling was not retroactive, so it could not have been used to appeal earlier cases of three black Dallas County defendants sentenced to death while the manual was in circulation. All won appeals over other issues, were convicted in subsequent retrials and executed.
Another black Dallas County inmate on death row, Ronald C. Chambers, got his conviction overturned in 1989 by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which cited issues similar to those in Miller-El's trial.
In his third trial, Chambers was re-convicted in the 1975 shooting and beating death of a white man. He's now the longest-serving inmate on Texas death row.
Sparling, now retired, did not return a phone call from the Associated Press seeking comment on the manual. He told the New York Times in 2002 that he wrote the instructions informally and quickly, without being careful of his words.
Wade, whose name is on the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion case, died in 2001.
Hill, who took office in 1999, declined to be interviewed by the Associated Press. He said in an earlier statement that his office does not tolerate illegal discrimination from prosecutors or opposing jurors. "His guilt of this heinous crime is not in question," Hill said.
Miller-El was convicted of murdering Holiday Inn clerk Douglas Walker during a robbery. Walker and co-worker Donald Ray Hall were bound, gagged and shot. Hall, who was paralyzed in the shooting, identified Miller-El as the gunman.
Questioned before Former Assistant District Attorney Paul Macaluso, who helped prosecute both Chambers and Miller-El, said he never practiced racial discrimination in jury selection. Macaluso, now a Dallas federal prosecutor, said he was aware of the manual before he joined Wade's office in 1973, but no one instructed the staff to follow it.
Concerns about the manual are not new. A Time magazine article about the guidelines in 1973 appeared under the headline: "Women, Gimps, Blacks, Hippies Need Not Apply." Excerpts were placed under a cartoon depicting a jury of hooded Klansmen, according to Miller-El's clemency appeal.
Studying selection process In 1986, the Dallas Morning News reported that it found that county prosecutors routinely manipulated the racial makeup of juries through legal challenges, excluding up to 90 percent of qualified black candidates from felony juries.
Wade said then that the newspaper's study, based on computer analysis of court records of 100 randomly selected felony jury trials in 1983 and 1984, did not convince him that prosecutors engaged in systematic exclusion of blacks.
Wade and his assistants maintained at the time that Sparling's recommendations never were followed blindly and that most prosecutors had not read the manual.
But Larry Baraka, a former state district judge, said it was routine to keep blacks off the jury from 1976-78, when he worked for the district attorney's office — the only black prosecutor most of that period.
"I didn't like it at the time, and I had a few run-ins about it because I instructed the prosecutor picking my juries that I didn't want them striking black folk," Baraka said.
BY THE MANUAL
In overturning Thomas Miller-El's conviction, the Supreme Court cited a manual, written in 1969 and used until at least 1980, that instructed prosecutors on how to exclude minorities from Texas juries. Some excerpts from the manual, written by Jon Sparling, a top assistant to longtime Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade: •"You are not looking for any member of a minority group which may subject him to oppression — they almost always empathize with the accused." •"Look for physical afflictions. These people usually sympathize with the accused." •"Extremely overweight people, especially women and young women, indicate a lack of self-discipline and often times instability. I like the lean and hungry look."
Jury profiling is a no no! Such crap!
I put this case on the shoulders of every lawyer and constituionalist. Our system is wretched - it sets cold blooded criminals free, and this is only one case out of millions.
Judges will go home to their McMansions, this killer will walk, and somewhere there lies the grave of that innocent hotel clerk.
The Court found the jury guilty of discrimination beyond a shadow of the doubt. Facts no longer matter. All that matters is the potential for impropriety. Anybody that believes the country can be run this way is a threat to civilized thinking and civilization itself.
Racial discrimination is predominately a black phenomenon, not a white phenomenon.
***
What a joke!
Souter, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Breyer, J., filed a concurring opinion.
Wow! I read Souter's opinion. He's a legal genius and mental giant;Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Scalia, J., joined."The same is true for another kind of disparate questioning, which might fairly be called trickery"(Oh no, not "trickery"! Mercy me and heavens to Betsy )
And here's what Justice Thomas wrote in dissent. You know, the guy who Harry Reid called an idiot...."For nearly 20 years now, Miller-El has contended that prosecutors peremptorily struck potential jurors on the basis of race. In that time, seven state and six federal judges have reviewed the evidence and found no error. This Court concludes otherwise, because it relies on evidence never presented to the Texas state courts. That evidence does not, much less "clear[ly] and convincing[ly]," show that the State racially discriminated against potential jurors. 28 U. S. C. §2254(e)(1). However, we ought not even to consider it: In deciding whether to grant Miller-El relief, we may look only to "the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." §2254(d)(2).The majority ignores that restriction on our review to grant Miller-El relief. I respectfully dissent.
So once again the liberal faction of SCOTUS ignores the law and rules on 'feelings' - "Awww gee whiz, Texas didn't play fair, they "tricked" the defense."
-------------------------------
Holy Mackeral.
Racial discrimination is predominately a black phenomenon, not a white phenomenon.
** Wow that's the most amazing thing I've read yet.
Response: Apparently he is guilty irrespective of the jury makeup.
This is one of the fallacies of leaving killers on death row too long. Convicted killers should be executed within 1 year of their sentencing. If this pig had been executed in a timely fashion he would have been eaten by the worms by now.
By all means - free all the killers, as they were tried by jurys (sp?) of non-killers.
Why stop there? Why not free all the pedophiles, convicted by non-pedophiles.
The court wrongly assumes this works to reduce racism in the country. This reinforces blacks' feeling/culture of victimhood, while demonstrating to whites that the government and courts are biased to protect blacks. The result of their actions is a known black murderer of a white man potentially walking free. Continued Black on White violence of the extent and nature it has been for the last 30 years is going to start to be noticed.
This is not helping black people. And it isn't helping whites treat them as equals, either.
Diva's Husband
There is no "apparently".
In idiot Souter's written opinion he even states that guilt is without doubt.
Why would anyone want to treat a criminal like an equal? I don't understand your post.
The term you are looking for is "peer" - as in "tried by a jury of their peers". Not tried by a jury of their equals. A peer of a murderer is a murderer, as no normal person would be a murderer. My position is that a peer of a black person should be another person - not another black person.
My point is the federal government is enforcing racism in education, the courts, business contracting, and in general all aspects of society on which they have input - which is quite a lot. This is a demonstrable disservice to highly pigmented people, and leaving whites the rational choice that maybe if we are going to be treated like racists it would be OK if we started acting as such. Thus - this is not helping.
Lawyers profile jurys professionally, with entire companies of consultants making big$$$ analysing jury make up and dynamics. Someone out there understands precisely why people of color are being removed from certain jurys.
For reasons why many Black jurists are perceived as irresponsible/not rational or capable of functioning in the current US legal system, please consult Reginald Denny.
Diva's Husband
The term you are looking for is "peer" - as in "tried by a jury of their peers". Not tried by a jury of their equals. A peer of a murderer is a murderer, as no normal person would be a murderer. My position is that a peer of a black person should be another person - not another black person.
My point is the federal government is enforcing racism in education, the courts, business contracting, and in general all aspects of society on which they have input - which is quite a lot. This is a demonstrable disservice to highly pigmented people, and leaving whites the rational choice that maybe if we are going to be treated like racists it would be OK if we started acting as such. Thus - this is not helping.
Lawyers profile jurys professionally, with entire companies of consultants making big$$$ analysing jury make up and dynamics. Someone out there understands precisely why people of color are being removed from certain jurys.
For reasons why many Black jurists are perceived as irresponsible/not rational or capable of functioning in the current US legal system, please consult Reginald Denny.
Diva's Husband
Thanks for the clarification. I think I get it now.
Would not a retroactive ruling constiute an ex-postfacto law?
Thank goodness the number of racists in America is declining. But I will still suggest that if someone is a racist, the odds greatly favor that the person will be black instead of white.
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