US Supreme Court declines juror discrimination case by man on death row

The US Supreme Court has declined to consider the case of a Black man on death row in Georgia who says his trial was unfair because the prosecutor improperly excluded Black jurors.

The high court did not give a reason for declining to hear the case on Tuesday.

Warren King, 48, was convicted of murder and other crimes in the September 1994 shooting death of convenience store clerk Karen Crosby during a robbery in southeastern Georgia.

At his trial, the prosecutor used strikes to eliminate 87.5 percent of the eligible Black jurors and only 8.8 percent of the eligible white jurors, all women.

A 1986 US Supreme Court decision established what is known as the “Batson” rule, which prohibits the exclusion of prospective jurors based on their race.

King's lawyers say the prosecutor in his case violated that rule and ranted against it when King's trial attorneys raised concerns during jury selection that he was striking Black jurors because of their race.

“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 US 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.”

Batson rule

The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed King's convictions and sentence without any mention of prosecutor John Johnson's long statements critical of the Batson rule or the rate at which he struck Black and female jurors.

In the final phase of the appeals process, the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals called the record in the case “troubling” but deferred to the state court's findings.

King's lawyers asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a dissent, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, saying she would send the case back to the 11th Circuit to consider the claims under the Batson rule without deferring to the state court findings.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Johnson declined to comment, saying the Supreme Court's decision “pretty well speaks for itself.”

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.

When King's trial lawyers challenged the state's use of strikes, the judge instructed prosecutor John Johnson to explain his reasoning.

The judge accepted his explanations until he said he struck one juror because “this lady is a black female” who was from the same area as King and knew him and his family.

The judge noted that the woman had said she didn't know King or his family, found that her elimination violated the Batson rule and ordered her seated on the jury.