A DA kept Black women off a jury; California Supreme Court says that wasn't racial bias

One by one, a California prosecutor eliminated five out of six Black women from the jury pool for a death penalty case in which a white carpet cleaner slayed his client, a young mother.The attorney in Alameda County had a reason for each dismissal. He believed one, for instance, appeared too reluctant to impose a death sentence. Another had a "liberal bent.

The burden is largely on the defendant to prove racial bias in criminal hearings, but in 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified that threshold, ruling that prosecutors have to provide reasonable, race-neutral explanations when challenged in court. California has since enacted greater protections for those contesting their sentences, including a 2022 law that allows those convicted before 2021 to petition the court if there is evidence of racial bias in their case.

In a dissent, two justices wrote that the court should have paid more attention to Nadey’s argument that Black women were improperly removed from the jury pool. They pointed to the federal order mandating reviews of Alameda County’s death penalty cases."Today’s decision is particularly jarring given what has come to light in federal court regarding capital jury selection in Alameda County around the time that Nadey was tried," the dissent by Justice Goodwin Liu reads.

This story was originally published by CalMatters and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

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