(CA) Court to review whether Jews were excluded from jury

[question everything]

Court to review whether Jews were excluded from jury

ASSOCIATED PRESS

March 21, 2005

SAN JOSE – A Superior Court judge in San Jose is scheduled to hold a hearing tomorrow on a former prosecutor's claim that he conspired with a judge to keep Jewish jurors off the panel that heard a 1987 death penalty case.

The California Supreme Court ordered the hearing to investigate the sworn statement of John "Jack" Quatman, who said he and other lawyers in the Alameda County District Attorney's Office routinely used pre-emptory challenges to keep Jews and black women off juries in capital cases.

Quatman's testimony was filed on behalf of Fred Freeman, who was sentenced to death in the slaying of a bar patron during a robbery in Berkeley. As the prosecutor assigned to Freeman's trial, Quatman said he colluded with Alameda County Superior Court Judge Stanley Golde, who has since died, to keep Jewish jurors from hearing the case.

(snip)

Quatman's credibility is expected to be an issue in the hearing. He has had two murder convictions overturned because of misconduct. In one, a state court of appeal ruled Quatman used a "deliberate and unjustified ethnic slur" when he referred to an Afghan-American defendant as a member of a guerrilla group then fighting the Soviet army.

More..

Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050321/news_1n21jurors.html

[Coastie for Truth]

1. Background

The Judge was Jewish.

The Judge is alleged to have to told that prosecutor that "Jews are too pro-defense and too sympathetic -- and too hesitant to adjudge a death penalty."

Been in the Chron and the Merc all last week.

[salin]

2. Wow.

That's all I can say. Wow. So now, on the most serious question of the ultimate punishment - we choose to pull from a limited pool of possible jurors - using race/religion as a reason to exclude? Yikes.

[Pallas180]

3. The big picture is - the crumbling/destruction of the Judicial

branch is in progress....

add this together with Delay usurping State Court power of decision.

[salin]

4. *sigh*

it would appear that you would be right. I couldn't have imagined several years ago tht Renquist would twice write a letter opposing the repubs in congress (and ashcroft) per a desired "review" of judges records on imposing mandatory sentencing rules and creating a "rating" sheet of judges on that level. Twice (meaning the issue is still there) he has had to go on the record as to how over reaching the house repubs have become in terms of trying to change the constitutional seperation of branches of govt - and this from a major ally of those same house repubs.

[iamjoy]

5. Weren't They Doing This In Dallas, Too?

Didn't the DA actually have a manual telling them to try to keep Jews, women and Blacks off of a jury?

The Court just below the Supreme Court saw no problem when the case reached them. It went to SCOTUS, who in an 8-1 decision ordered the lower court to review it again.

And who was the one dissenting vote? Not Renquist, not Scalia. It was none other than that champion of African Americans, Clarence Thomas.