27 March 2007 :

for the 2nd time in less than a year, the Missouri Supreme Court has struck down a death sentence over concerns that St. Louis County prosecutors removed blacks from juries for "racially discriminatory reasons."
Both cases involved the same defendant, Vincent McFadden, 26, but separate death sentences were recommended by separate juries for separate murders.
Mark Bishop, who prosecuted both cases and is now in private practice, said there was no policy to exclude blacks.
On March 11, 2005 (see), McFadden, who is black, was convicted by a jury of 11 whites and one black for the July 3, 2002 fatal shooting of 20-year-old Todd Franklin.
On May 24, 2006 (see), a judge followed the March 23, 2006 (see) Louis County jury's recommendation in sentencing McFadden to be executed for the May 15, 2003 fatal shooting of Leslie Addison, 18.
But on May 16, the Missouri Supreme Court had ruled 4-3 that Bishop had rejected some of the Franklin case jurors for racially discriminatory reasons. Five blacks were rejected in part because they were familiar with the crime scene, the court found, while five whites made it to the jury with similar familiarity.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision in November, and McFadden is now scheduled to be retried.
The Franklin murder and the death penalty were two of the 6 aggravating factors cited by prosecutors in arguing to the Addison jury that McFadden should die for that one, too. The state Supreme Court was unanimous that McFadden should get a new penalty hearing because of that.
"A sentence resting on factors this Court deems invalid is equally invalid," the opinion says.
The judges were split on the issue of discriminatory jury selection.
The 1986 U.S. Supreme Court decision Batson v. Kentucky says prosecutors must show race-neutral reasons to eliminate blacks from juries.