March 20, 2019

2019-03-22T20:01:31-04:00

https://images.c-span.org/Files/c29/20190322200157001_hd.jpg

The Supreme Court heard oral argument in Flowers v. Mississippi, a case on racial bias in jury selection. Curtis Flowers, an African American Mississippi death row inmate, was sentenced to death for killing four people in a Winona furniture store in 1996. He has had six trials, and two of them were declared mistrials because the juries could not reach a unanimous verdict. Flowers' legal team questioned the constitutionality with the district attorney who tried each of the cases and his use of strikes during the jury selection process to remove potential jurors who were black. The Court in 1986 ruled in Batson v. Kentucky ruled that striking potential jurors based on race is unconstitutional.



Justice Clarence Thomas asked a question for the first time since 2016.



On June 21, 2019, the Court ruled 7-2 that the prosecutor violated the law when he dismissed potential jurors because of their race

The Supreme Court heard oral argument in Flowers v. Mississippi, a case on racial bias in jury selection. Curtis Flowers, an African… read more