FILE - The Supreme Court is seen, April 21, 2023, in Washington. The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, July 2, 2024, declined to consider the case of a man on death row in Georgia whose lawyers argue that a prosecutor improperly excluded Black jurors during his trial. U.S. Supreme Court
“Discrimination based on race and gender must have no role in our criminal legal system and certainly not when a man’s life is at stake," Anna Arceneaux, one of King's lawyers, said in a statement. “The U.S. Supreme Court should have stepped up to enforce this core constitutional principle, given the glaring and abhorrent nature of the prosecutor’s discrimination in this case.”
During jury selection, each side has a number of “peremptory strikes,” that can be used to dismiss a juror without having to give a reason. But if lawyers believe the other side is getting rid of jurors solely because of their race, they can raise a Batson challenge. Johnson then spoke out against the Batson rule again, arguing, in part, that “Batson now makes us look whether people are black or not. Not whether they’re black or white, but black or not. ... it is uncalled for to require people to be reseated on a jury that I have a problem with in this case,” according to court filings.
“The Georgia Supreme Court's blinkered assessment of each of prosecutor Johnson's strikes — divorced from context — ignored highly relevant facts and circumstances in three critical areas” Jackson wrote in her assessment, arguing that the court disregarded “highly salient facts.”