By James Kwak
Today was a victory for justice. In Foster v. Chatman—a case brought by the Southern Center for Human Rights and argued by death penalty super-lawyer Stephen Bright—the Supreme Court overturned the death sentence imposed on Timothy Foster by an all-white jury in 1987. In that case, the prosecution made sure it had an all-white jury by eliminating (striking) all black candidates from the jury pool. In Batson v. Kentucky (1986), the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to strike potential jurors on the basis of race, but the prosecutors’ own notes made clear that they knew what they were doing. Here are just a few examples, from the appendix. They pretty much speak for themselves.
It’s hard to read, but next to the green blotch in the picture above are the words “represents Blacks.”
The Baseline Scenario 