(CNN) A Mississippi prosecutor excluded many black jurors from trials for more than 25 years, a lawsuit alleges.

Since District Attorney Doug Evans took office in 1992, "he and his assistants have employed a policy, custom, or use of discriminatorily striking black jurors with peremptory challenges," according to the class action suit brought forth by four black residents and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) and the MacArthur Justice Center, representing Attala County's NAACP branch.

The plaintiffs are asking for a judge to order Evans to stop using challenges as a way to remove black jurors. Peremptory challenges allow lawyers to strike a prospective juror without giving a specific reason.

Black jurors were 4.4 times more likely to be struck down than white jurors, the lawsuit claims. And in cases where the defendant was black, the suit says, Evans' strike rate against black jurors was "even more pronounced."

after Evans engaged in unconstitutional racial discrimination when turning away black jurors from the panels. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled that a black death row inmate in Mississippi should get a new trial after Evans engaged in unconstitutional racial discrimination when turning away black jurors from the panels.

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