Court rejects Black Texas death row inmate's race bias claim
WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal from a Black Texas death row inmate who argued he didn't get a fair trial because jurors who convicted him objected to interracial marriage.
The court's three liberal justices dissented from the court's order turning away the appeal from inmate Andre Thomas. He was sentenced to death for killing his estranged wife, who was white, and two children in 2004.
"No jury deciding whether to recommend a death sentence should be tainted by potential racial biases that could infect its deliberations or decision, particularly where the case involved an interracial crime," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote. Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined Sotomayor's opinion.
On the all-white jury were three people who expressed their disapproval of interracial marriage, including one who wrote on a questionnaire "I think we should stay with our Blood Line."
Thomas' trial lawyer did not seek to prevent the three people from serving on the jury, and didn't even question two of the three about their views, Sotomayor wrote. One juror said he could be fair in spite of his views.
Sotomayor wrote that Thomas' conviction and death sentence should be overturned.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had earlier rejected Thomas' claim that his lawyer failed to provide competent representation.
Courts had earlier rejected appeals from Thomas' lawyers that Thomas should not be executed because he is mentally ill.
He confessed to killing his estranged wife, Laura Christine Boren, 20, their son, Andre Lee, 4, and her 13-month-old daughter, Leyha Marie Hughes, in 2004. Thomas said God had told him to commit the killings. The victims were stabbed and had their hearts ripped out.
Five days later in jail he plucked out one of his eyes. While on death row in 2009, he removed his remaining eye and told prison officials he ate it.
Thomas does not have an execution date.
Justices turn down appeal from Dylann Roof, who killed 9
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Dylann Roof, who challenged his death sentence and conviction in the 2015 racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation.
Roof had asked the court to decide how to handle disputes over mental illness-related evidence between capital defendants and their attorneys. The justices did not comment Tuesday in turning away the appeal.
Roof fired his attorneys and represented himself during the sentencing phase of his capital trial, part of his effort to block evidence potentially portraying him as mentally ill.
Roof shot participants at a Bible study session at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
A panel of appellate judges had previously upheld his conviction and death sentence.
Roof, 28, is on federal death row at a maximum-security prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. He can still pursue other appeals.
Gay marriage case video can be made public
WASHINGTON (AP) — Video of a landmark 2010 trial that cleared the way for gay marriage in California can be made public, the culmination of a years-long legal fight. The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it would not intervene in the dispute over the recordings, leaving in place lower court rulings permitting the video's release.
The trial more than a decade ago led to the resumption in 2013 of gay marriage in the nation's most populous state. That was two years before the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage is a nationwide right.
As is typical the justices said nothing about the case in declining to hear it, and it was among many the court declined.
The case the justices rejected began in 2008 when a California Supreme Court ruling legalized same-sex marriage. Voters, however, responded by passing Proposition 8 forbidding it. Two gay couples then sued and proponents of Proposition 8 defended it when the state said it wouldn't.
Because of the interest in the case, the judge overseeing it, Vaughn Walker, initially ordered that it be livestreamed to other courthouses. Proponents of the measure objected, and the Supreme Court stopped the proposed broadcast from happening. Walker did, however, record the trial under rules allowing the practice, but he said it was for his own use and not for the purpose of being broadcast or televised. The video became part of the record of the case but remained under seal.
In the case itself, Walker eventually sided with the gay couples, ruling that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional and barring the state from enforcing it. The case went to the Supreme Court and in a 2013 technical ruling the justices cleared the way for the resumption of same-sex marriage in the state. Two years later the justices ruled 5-4 that same-sex marriage was a nationwide right.
Walker, for his part, has been retired since 2011. After the trial was over, however, the judge used video clips of it during public appearances. A court stopped that practice but there continued to be efforts to unseal the recording. An appeals court determined that the seal on the video would expire in 2020 under local rules.
Some proponents of Proposition 8 argued that the video should remain sealed. But a judge concluded that there was no evidence that anyone involved in the case "fears retaliation or harassment if the recordings are released." The judge also said no one believed at the time of the trial that Walker's "commitment to personal use of the recordings meant that the trial recordings would remain under seal forever." A federal appeals court also ruled against the Proposition 8 proponents, leading them to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The case is Dennis Hollingsworth v. Kristin M. Perry, 21-1304.
