The Supreme Court has been divided on a number of issues over the years. But more recently, the use of race as a determinant in striking a potential juror from selection hasn’t been one of them.
Disallowing such an act became a legal precedent with the 1986 Batson v. Kentucky landmark decision.
So, observers and legal experts alike were baffled when Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas ended up the lone dissenter in an otherwise unified court decision to upend the death row conviction of an African-American man due to the intentional exclusion of Blacks from the all-white jury that convicted him.
Chief Justice John Roberts, among the Court’s most conservative members, himself wrote, “The State’s new argument today does not dissuade us from the conclusion that its prosecutors were motivated in substantial part by race.”
Six other justices agreed, for the 7-1 decision.
In the case Foster v. Chatman, Timothy Tyrone Foster was convicted of murder and sexual assault of Queen Madge White, a 79-year-old retired school teacher, nearly 30 years ago in Rome, Ga.
Attorneys for Foster used Georgia’s open records law to uncover evidence of the prosecutor in the original case writing a capital “B” alongside the names of prospective jurors who happened to be Black. The indication was apparently made on two occasions, after which neither of the prospective jurors were chosen.
Roberts concluded that these two such strikes “on the basis of race are two more than the Constitution allows.”
It’s unfortunate, almost tragic, that Thomas doesn’t see the situation this way.
In his dissent for Foster v. Chatman, Thomas wrote, “Foster’s new evidence does not justify this court’s assessment of who was telling the truth nearly three decades removed …”
Apparently the big “B” scribbled alongside the names of prospective jurors who were Black wasn’t worth noticing to him.
In fact, Justice Thomas seems to try mightily to ignore the “B” and all things Black that keep revealing themselves in his life.
But his refusal to see race doesn’t make him seem less Black, it only makes Thomas seem Black and self-loathing.
Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court, insisted that any use of pre-emptive strikes against a potential juror should be curtailed because it opens the door for racial discrimination.
So, Thomas’s views on this case are just another sad reminder of how much he is not like that first great African-American Supreme Court Justice, and how much he’s not like us, either.
Reprinted from the Philadelphia Tribune
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