United States Supreme Court Reverses Death Penalty Case Due to Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection

The United States Supreme Court set aside the death penalty imposed upon Allen Snyder in a case argued by the Center’s senior counsel, Stephen Bright, because of racial prejudice by a prosecutor who kept black people off Snyder’s jury.

By a 7-2 vote, the justices held on March 19, 2008, that Jim Williams, an assistant District Attorney in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, improperly excluded blacks from the jury that convicted Snyder of killing his estranged wife's companion and sentenced him to death.  Williams struck all five blacks on the pool of perspective jurors during jury selection resulting in an all-white jury.  Snyder is black.

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, said the trial judge should not have allowed Williams to strike a black juror. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Stevens, Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia dissented.

Williams asserted he struck an African American college student, Jeffrey Brooks, because he appeared “nervous” and claimed that he was concerned that Brooks might be concerned about missing classes. However, Williams did not Brooks about either reason.  Brooks had been assured by the trial judge during jury selection that the dean at his college said that a few days absence for jury duty would not be a problem.

The prosecutor's explanation for striking a prospective black juror was "suspicious," said Alito.

Williams accepted a white self-employed contractor who said that he needed to complete construction of two houses because one owner was moving in the following weekend and the other was moving in the next weekend. The contractor also said that he was taking care of his children, including taking them back and forth to school, because his wife was recovering from a hysterectomy. The contractor was accepted by Williams and served on the jury, as did other white jurors who had more compelling competing concerns that the black college student.

"The implausibility of the prosecutor's explanation is reinforced by his acceptance of white jurors who disclosed conflicting obligations that appear to have been at least as serious as Mr. Brooks'," the majority ruling said.

Snyder was sentenced to death in 1996. 

In an earlier 4-3 decision, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that race had no part in the state's decisions involving black potential jurors in Snyder's trial. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturns the state court's decision and returned the case to the Louisiana courts for a new trial.

When the case was argued in the U.S. Supreme Court in December, the justices were critical of the trial judge for overruling many defense objections about the prosecutor's use of race.

Bright said the ruling shows there is broad agreement among the justices that courts must closely examine the reasons given for excusing potential jurors when racial motives might be present but not acknowledged.

"Courts in Louisiana and elsewhere have been deferring to trial judges, no matter the reasons," Bright said.  “This decision requires closer scrutiny of those reasons to see whether there were just a pretext for racial discrimination.”

Eighty-five prospective jurors were questioned during jury selection.  Many were excused by the trial judge for various reasons, such as personal obligations which might interfere with their ability to serve or reasons they could not be impartial.  After 36 were found qualified for service, the prosecutors and defense attorneys each had 12 peremptory challenges, with which they could strike a juror.

Five of the remaining 36 were black; and all five of the prospective black jurors were eliminated by the prosecution through the use of peremptory strikes, the ruling pointed out.

Williams put a number of people besides Allen Snyder on Louisiana’s death row.  Williams displayed on his desk a toy electric chair with small pictures of the faces of the five black men he had sent to death row pasted in it. Among the people Williams sent to the death row were John Thompson and Curtis Kyles, who were exonerated after it was discovered that prosecutors had failed to disclose exculpatory evidence, and Saul Johnson and Norvell Smith, whose death sentences were reversed by the Louisiana Supreme Court because of improper closing arguments that Williams gave in their cases.  Background information on Prosecutor James Williams.

Jefferson Parish, where the trial occurred, is across the Mississippi River from New Orleans.  After Katrina, a police agency in Jefferson Parish blocked those fleeing the storm from crossing a bridge into Jefferson Parish.  White supremacist David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, carried Jefferson Parish in primaries for the United States Senate and governor of Louisiana in 1990 and 1991, and represented a district in the Parish in the state legislature.

Read the Supreme Court's Decision

Read the Transcript of the Oral Argument

Media Coverage:

• Commentary: Trial Judges on Trial?  Lyle Denniston, SCOTUSBLOG

• Race to the Bottom; The Supreme Court takes on the O.J. Obsessed Prosecutor Dahlia Lithwick, Slate Magazine

• High court mulls racial bias in juror selection Joan Biskupic, USA Today

• Jury under justices' scrutiny Henry Weinstein Los Angeles Times

• All Things Considered Nina Totenberg National Public Radio

• How hard can judges crack down on bias? Warren Richey Christian Science Monitor

• Supreme Court Reconsiders Pivotal Louisiana Case on Racial Selection of Juries Linda Greenhouse New York Times

Additional Documents:

Brief for Allen Snyder

Brief for Louisiana

Amicus curiae briefs filed on behalf of Snyder by the Constitution Project and Ministers in Jefferson Parish.