Post by CCADP on Aug 13, 2005 20:49:37 GMT -5
Dallas man to get new trial in case overturned on race questions
A Supreme Court decision citing racial discrimination during trial
provided murder convict Thomas Miller-El an opportunity to leave Texas'
death row after 20 years, but Dallas prosecutors will try to prevent that
by retrying him.
Dallas District Attorney Bill Hill says the high court's decision in June
doesn't question the guilt of Miller-El, a black defendant accused of
killing a white hotel clerk and wounding another during a robbery. His
office says the state will again seek the death penalty.
Prosecutors have until late November to set a new trial date for
Miller-El, or risk his release, a federal appeals court ruled in July.
Miller-El's attorney Jim Marcus said his client retains the presumption of
innocence "until proven guilty in a constitutionally fair trial."
Miller-El was sentenced to death row in 1986 by a 12-member jury that
included 1 black. Prosecutors struck 10 of the 11 blacks eligible to
serve.
The Supreme Court overturned Miller-El's conviction, citing a manual,
written in 1969 and used until at least 1980, that instructed prosecutors
on how to exclude minorities from Texas juries. Supreme Court Justice
David H. Souter called racial discrimination in Dallas County's jury
selection process unquestionable.
"If anything more is needed for an undeniable explanation of what was
going on, history supplies it," Souter wrote in the 6-3 decision. "The
prosecutors took their cues from a 20-year-old manual of tips on jury
selection, as shown by their notes of the race of each potential juror."
The manual, written by Jon Sparling, a top assistant to longtime Dallas
District Attorney Henry Wade, included such instructions as:
- "You are not looking for any member of a minority group which may
subject him to oppression - they almost always empathize with the
accused."
- "Look for physical afflictions. These people usually sympathize with the
accused."
- "Extremely overweight people, especially women and young women, indicate
a lack of self-discipline and often times instability. I like the lean and
hungry look."
While racial discrimination in selecting jurors has long been federally
prohibited, it was harder to prove before the 1986 Batson v. Kentucky
ruling, which was bolstered by Miller-El. Before Batson, no reasons had be
provided for using preemptory strikes.
The ruling was not retroactive, so it could not have been used to appeal
the earlier cases of three black Dallas County defendants sentenced to
death while the manual was in circulation. All 3 won appeals over other
issues, were convicted in subsequent retrials and executed.
Another black Dallas County inmate on death row, Ronald C. Chambers, got
his conviction overturned in 1989 by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals,
which cited issues similar to Miller-El's.
In his 3rd trial, Chambers was re-convicted in the 1975 shooting and
beating death of a white man. He's now the longest serving inmate on Texas
death row.
Sparling, now retired, did not return a phone call from The Associated
Press seeking comment on the manual. He told The New York Times in 2002
that he wrote the instructions informally and quickly, without being
careful of his words.
Wade, whose name is on the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion case, died in
2001.
Hill, who took office in 1999, declined to be interviewed by The
Associated Press. He said in an earlier written statement that his office
does not tolerate illegal discrimination from prosecutors or opposing
jurors.
"His guilt of this heinous crime is not in question," Hill said.
Miller-El was convicted of murdering Holiday Inn clerk Douglas Walker
during a robbery. Walker and co-worker Donald Ray Hall were bound, gagged
and shot. Hall, who was paralyzed in the shooting, identified Miller-El as
the triggerman.
Former assistant district attorney Paul Macaluso, who helped prosecute
both Chambers and Miller-El, said he never practiced racial discrimination
in jury selection.
Macaluso, now a Dallas federal prosecutor, said he was aware of the manual
before he joined Wade's office in 1973, but no one instructed the staff to
follow it.
Concerns about the manual are not new, however.
A Time Magazine article about the guidelines in 1973 appeared under the
headline: "Women, Gimps, Blacks, Hippies Need Not Apply." Excerpts were
placed under a cartoon depicting a jury of hooded Klansmen, according to
Miller-El's clemency appeal.
In 1986, The Dallas Morning News reported that it found that county
prosecutors routinely manipulated the racial makeup of juries through
legal challenges, excluding up to 90 % of qualified black candidates from
felony juries.
Wade said then that the newspaper's study, based on computer analysis of
court records of 100 randomly selected felony jury trials in 1983 and
1984, did not convince him that prosecutors engaged in systematic
exclusion of blacks.
Wade and his assistants maintained at the time that Sparling's
recommendations never were followed blindly and that most prosecutors had
not read the manual.
But Larry Baraka, a former state district judge, said it was routine to
keep blacks off the jury when he worked for the district attorney's office
from 1976-78 - the only black prosecutor during most of that period.
"I didn't like it at the time, and I had a few run-ins about it because I
instructed the prosecutor picking my juries that I didn't want them
striking black folk," Baraka said.
On the Net: Thomas Miller-El Information site:
www.thomasmillerel.com
Death Penalty Information Center: www.deathpenaltyinfo.org
Supreme Court: www.supremecourtus
(source: Associated Press)
***********************
A Supreme Court decision citing racial discrimination during trial
provided murder convict Thomas Miller-El an opportunity to leave Texas'
death row after 20 years, but Dallas prosecutors will try to prevent that
by retrying him.
Dallas District Attorney Bill Hill says the high court's decision in June
doesn't question the guilt of Miller-El, a black defendant accused of
killing a white hotel clerk and wounding another during a robbery. His
office says the state will again seek the death penalty.
Prosecutors have until late November to set a new trial date for
Miller-El, or risk his release, a federal appeals court ruled in July.
Miller-El's attorney Jim Marcus said his client retains the presumption of
innocence "until proven guilty in a constitutionally fair trial."
Miller-El was sentenced to death row in 1986 by a 12-member jury that
included 1 black. Prosecutors struck 10 of the 11 blacks eligible to
serve.
The Supreme Court overturned Miller-El's conviction, citing a manual,
written in 1969 and used until at least 1980, that instructed prosecutors
on how to exclude minorities from Texas juries. Supreme Court Justice
David H. Souter called racial discrimination in Dallas County's jury
selection process unquestionable.
"If anything more is needed for an undeniable explanation of what was
going on, history supplies it," Souter wrote in the 6-3 decision. "The
prosecutors took their cues from a 20-year-old manual of tips on jury
selection, as shown by their notes of the race of each potential juror."
The manual, written by Jon Sparling, a top assistant to longtime Dallas
District Attorney Henry Wade, included such instructions as:
- "You are not looking for any member of a minority group which may
subject him to oppression - they almost always empathize with the
accused."
- "Look for physical afflictions. These people usually sympathize with the
accused."
- "Extremely overweight people, especially women and young women, indicate
a lack of self-discipline and often times instability. I like the lean and
hungry look."
While racial discrimination in selecting jurors has long been federally
prohibited, it was harder to prove before the 1986 Batson v. Kentucky
ruling, which was bolstered by Miller-El. Before Batson, no reasons had be
provided for using preemptory strikes.
The ruling was not retroactive, so it could not have been used to appeal
the earlier cases of three black Dallas County defendants sentenced to
death while the manual was in circulation. All 3 won appeals over other
issues, were convicted in subsequent retrials and executed.
Another black Dallas County inmate on death row, Ronald C. Chambers, got
his conviction overturned in 1989 by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals,
which cited issues similar to Miller-El's.
In his 3rd trial, Chambers was re-convicted in the 1975 shooting and
beating death of a white man. He's now the longest serving inmate on Texas
death row.
Sparling, now retired, did not return a phone call from The Associated
Press seeking comment on the manual. He told The New York Times in 2002
that he wrote the instructions informally and quickly, without being
careful of his words.
Wade, whose name is on the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion case, died in
2001.
Hill, who took office in 1999, declined to be interviewed by The
Associated Press. He said in an earlier written statement that his office
does not tolerate illegal discrimination from prosecutors or opposing
jurors.
"His guilt of this heinous crime is not in question," Hill said.
Miller-El was convicted of murdering Holiday Inn clerk Douglas Walker
during a robbery. Walker and co-worker Donald Ray Hall were bound, gagged
and shot. Hall, who was paralyzed in the shooting, identified Miller-El as
the triggerman.
Former assistant district attorney Paul Macaluso, who helped prosecute
both Chambers and Miller-El, said he never practiced racial discrimination
in jury selection.
Macaluso, now a Dallas federal prosecutor, said he was aware of the manual
before he joined Wade's office in 1973, but no one instructed the staff to
follow it.
Concerns about the manual are not new, however.
A Time Magazine article about the guidelines in 1973 appeared under the
headline: "Women, Gimps, Blacks, Hippies Need Not Apply." Excerpts were
placed under a cartoon depicting a jury of hooded Klansmen, according to
Miller-El's clemency appeal.
In 1986, The Dallas Morning News reported that it found that county
prosecutors routinely manipulated the racial makeup of juries through
legal challenges, excluding up to 90 % of qualified black candidates from
felony juries.
Wade said then that the newspaper's study, based on computer analysis of
court records of 100 randomly selected felony jury trials in 1983 and
1984, did not convince him that prosecutors engaged in systematic
exclusion of blacks.
Wade and his assistants maintained at the time that Sparling's
recommendations never were followed blindly and that most prosecutors had
not read the manual.
But Larry Baraka, a former state district judge, said it was routine to
keep blacks off the jury when he worked for the district attorney's office
from 1976-78 - the only black prosecutor during most of that period.
"I didn't like it at the time, and I had a few run-ins about it because I
instructed the prosecutor picking my juries that I didn't want them
striking black folk," Baraka said.
On the Net: Thomas Miller-El Information site:
www.thomasmillerel.com
Death Penalty Information Center: www.deathpenaltyinfo.org
Supreme Court: www.supremecourtus
(source: Associated Press)
***********************