WASHINGTON, June 13 - The Supreme Court overturned the 20-year-old murder conviction of a Texas death-row inmate on Monday on the ground that the jury selection had been infected by racial discrimination.

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Brett Coomer/Associated Press
Thomas Miller-El challenged his conviction for the 1985 murder of a 25-year-old Dallas motel clerk.


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Text: The Ruling It was the court's second decision in three years on behalf of the inmate, Thomas Miller-El, who is black, and the justices' second rebuke of the federal appeals court that handled his case. The decision itself made no new law; instead, it reflected the judgment of the 6-to-3 majority that the lower courts' refusal to remedy a failure in the criminal justice system now required correction at the highest level.

Justice David H. Souter's majority opinion, noting that "the very integrity of the courts is jeopardized" by racial bias in jury selection, examined aspects of the selection process in unusual detail and concluded that the state's "attempt at a race-neutral rationalization" for what occurred "simply fails to explain what the prosecutors did."

When the evidence is "viewed cumulatively," Justice Souter said, "its direction is too powerful to conclude anything but discrimination." The case was the latest of several recent Supreme Court decisions to express concern about the quality of justice being meted out by the state courts in Texas and by the federal courts that oversee the cases when inmates raise questions of federal law.

In Mr. Miller-El's 1986 trial in the death of a clerk during a robbery at a Holiday Inn in Dallas in 1985, the prosecution used its peremptory strikes to remove 10 of 11 black potential jurors, providing explanations that the Supreme Court found "incredible." Under the writ of habeas corpus that the Supreme Court granted, Texas will now have to retry or release him.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas complained that the majority had permitted itself to be "swayed" by Mr. Miller-El's "charges of racism." He said that "on the basis of facts and law, rather than sentiments, Miller-El does not merit the writ."

Justice Thomas noted that the 1996 federal law defining the federal courts' jurisdiction to grant habeas corpus to state prison inmates required an inmate to show that the state court had based its decision on "an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court proceeding."

Mr. Miller-El "has not even come close to such a showing," Justice Thomas said. He was joined in his opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia.

Justice Souter's majority opinion was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

Justice Breyer wrote a concurring opinion to urge the court to rule that peremptory jury challenges should no longer be permitted. Such challenges, which permit each side to remove jurors without explanation, "seem increasingly anomalous in our judicial system," Justice Breyer said. He added that despite the Supreme Court's effort of decades to eradicate bias from jury selection, "the use of race- and gender-based stereotypes in the jury-selection process seems better organized and more systematized than ever before."

The history of this case, Miller-El v. Dretke, No. 03-9659, paralleled the court's modern effort to deal with race and jury selection. Mr. Miller-El was tried, convicted and sentenced to death shortly before the Supreme Court made the rules more favorable for defendants seeking to attack as racially motivated the prosecution's use of peremptory challenges. That 1986 decision, Batson v. Kentucky, applied retroactively to Mr. Miller-El because his case was then still on appeal.

Under the Batson ruling, a prosecutor whose use of peremptory challenges raises an inference of discrimination has to provide an explanation, which the judge can either accept as "race neutral" or reject as a pretext for discrimination. The state trial court in Texas, reviewing the selection of Mr. Miller-El's jury on instruction from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, found the prosecutors' explanations "completely credible and sufficient." The state appeals court affirmed that finding in 1992.

The Justice system is a joke

u didnt reeally read it did you

can't lie, i only made it threw the first couple sentences before i quit.

i speed read

You have no rights when you're on Death Row. You're just a useless waste of flesh...taking up space & $$, waiting to be elminated... It's part of cleaning up the gene pool....

Where's the switch...or gun...lemme' at it

I support the death row in Texas. Iknow that there have been and probably will be innocents people there. I hope our modern science can reduce that amount. but I am all for the death penalty

the death penalty is a reminder of just how barbaric this nation can be...its like an organized lynching..

so what would be your suggestion then?

whether we like the laws/punishment or not...it's there. don't do the crime if you can't do the time (in this case the punishment)

kind of like the pot laws where it's illegal unless prescribed. many think it's wrong but it's law, so if you choose to break the law...accept what happens. we all have choices in the world whether we like the choices or not

we should for once stop being so damn stubborn and proud and actually look to someone else for guidance, the Europeans have it right in my opinion about execution.

my question is how do you suggest we deter murders

Actually - I believe the death penalty laws should be rewritten across the country. Right now, I doubt there are any states (and yes..i could be wrong here) that actually carry out the sentence in less that 5 years.
5 friggin' years! This is no deterrent.

So - national referendum - let our population decide

1) Death penalty - Person gets choice of hanging, shot, lethal injection or gassed. Pick one. Default is lethal injection.
You get your trial. You get one automatic appeal, in which the whole trial is done over - all evidence from prior trial and all *proper* new evidence is allowed. 6 to 9 months to prepare for this. If you lose - a third trial is set - this one to review any and all procedures and the 'critical evidence' from the first two. They find no problems - they set your execution date. Sentence is carried out on that day.

2)No death penalty - It is replaced with life, w/o any, zip, zilch, zero, nada possibility of parole.

Prison - you get your choice - educate or vegetate. You want to be a veggie? Fine - we are gonna mash you like taters. You will work. Menial hard labor. You will get all the clean water you need, three nutritionally balanced meals per day (I don't care if it is repetitious, or taste like sh*t) Educate - you take college level course or trade schools. You get ONE shot. You screw up, or do not maintain a good grade level - off to the work gang. *IF* you leave prison, you are either going to be strong or smart - pick one.

still pretty primitive for the age we live in, surely you have a better imagination than that..

so...what is your suggestion to deter murders?

Obviously the death penalty doesn't do it, death penalty states have higher crime rates then the non death penalty states or at least that is what I read.

I say the same thing where is the intelligence in socially accepted murder?

AGAIN...what is the suggestions to deter the murders?

The threat of death doesn't deter murder so punishment for life I guess would have to be the choice. Nothing deters criminals if they are really criminals so all you have left is to punish them for their crimes. Death really doesn't punish people anyway. Death can be a welcome relief to someone in prison.