WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court, overturning the murder convictions of a black man in California and another in Texas by nearly all-white juries, warned judges and prosecutors Monday that they must put an end to racial discrimination in the selection of jurors.
The California ruling is likely to have an immediate effect on the way juries are selected in the state, and will give some other recently convicted criminals a claim to a new trial.
The Constitution's guarantee of equal treatment under the law requires that race play no role in the forming of juries, the court said. To permit such discrimination "undermines public confidence in the fairness of our system of justice" and is "at war with our basic concepts of a democratic society," Justice John Paul Stevens said.
Justice Clarence Thomas, the only black member of the high court, voted against the defendants in both cases.
The pair of rulings puts new teeth in earlier decisions that ordered trial judges to watch over the process of selecting a jury. Judges were to make sure that neither prosecutors nor defense lawyers excluded potential jurors because of race.
In the California case, the justices said trial judges must question lawyers whenever there was a hint or "an inference" of racial bias when a potential juror was excluded.
The 8-1 decision overturns a more conservative rule adopted by the California Supreme Court, which called for intervention by a judge only when there was a "strong likelihood" that racial bias was involved.
In the Texas case, the justices voted 6 to 3 to overturn a nearly 20-year-old murder conviction and all but accused Dallas prosecutors of lying about their efforts to exclude African Americans from the jury.
The prosecutors removed 19 of 20 African Americans from the jury pool in 1986 before they tried Thomas Miller-El, who is black, for the robbery and murder of a Holiday Inn worker. He was convicted and sentenced to death. He was days away from execution three years ago when the high court intervened in his case.
Although the Texas ruling resolved an old case, the California decision was likely to have an immediate and ongoing effect on the state's criminal and civil trials. The justices said they wanted trial judges to move quickly to halt the jury selection process whenever they saw the first sign of racial bias, whatever the race of the defendant.
