TEXAS. SUPREME COURT ORDERS NEW TRIAL FOR DEATH ROW INMATE

June 13, 2005: the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a black death row inmate who said Texas prosecutors unfairly stacked his jury with whites, issuing a harsh rebuke to the state that executes more people than any other.
The 6-3 ruling ordered a new trial for Thomas Miller-El, who challenged his conviction for the 1985 murder of a 25-year-old Dallas motel clerk. It was the 2nd time justices reviewed the case after a lower court refused to reconsider Miller-El's claims.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans was wrong to reaffirm the conviction by a state court in light of the strong evidence of prejudice during jury selection, justices said.
The state court's conclusion that the prosecutors' strikes of people from the jury pool was "not racially determined is shown up as wrong to a clear and convincing degree; the state court's conclusion was unreasonable as well as erroneous," Justice David H. Souter wrote for the majority.
In the opinion, Souter noted that black jurors were questioned more aggressively about the death penalty, and the pool was "shuffled" at least twice by prosecutors, apparently to increase the chances whites would be selected.
"At least 2 of the jury shuffles conducted by the state make no sense except as efforts to delay consideration of black jury panelists," Souter said, adding that it "blinks reality" to deny jurors were struck because they were black.
Since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, Texas has executed over 1/3 of the more than 900 people put to death in the United States.
Miller-El contends that Dallas County prosecutors had a long history of excluding blacks from juries and pointed to training manuals that were distributed to prosecutors from the 1960s into the early 1980s. The manuals advised prosecutors to remove blacks or Jews from death penalty juries on the theory that those groups would be more sympathetic to criminal defendants.
At trial, he was convicted by a 12-member jury that included 1 black. Prosecutors struck 9 of the 10 blacks eligible to serve.
The case is Miller-El v. Dretke, 03-9659.
On the Net: Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/ (Sources: CBS News, The Christian Science Monitor, Dallas Morning News, 13/06/2005)