Report: Dallas Prosecutors Excluded Blacks

[Judi Lynn]

Report: Dallas Prosecutors Excluded Blacks
Newspaper Report Shows Dallas Prosecutors Excluded Blacks From Juries As Recently As 2002
The Associated Press

DALLAS Aug 21, 2005 — As recently as 2002, Dallas County prosecutors were excluding eligible blacks from juries at more than twice the rate they turned down whites, a newspaper reported Sunday.

The issue surfaced earlier this year when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1986 murder conviction of a black man accused of killing a white motel clerk, saying the Dallas County jury that convicted Thomas Miller-El was unfairly stacked with whites.
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. Justice David Souter wrote that racial discrimination in the Miller-El case was unquestionable.
(snip)

The dueling tactics of defense attorneys and prosecutors during jury selection produce only an illusion of equal rights that flouts the intent of several U.S. Supreme Court rulings, said University of Iowa law professor David Baldus, a leading researcher on jury selection.

Racial discrimination in selecting jurors has long been federally prohibited. A 1986 Supreme Court ruling cited in the Miller-El case barred prosecutors from disqualifying potential jurors based on rac
(snip/...)

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1056957

[tx_dem41]

1. I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell ya!

No I'm not.

[ls317]

2. Come On Now

Thats not really a shock its Texas..