Prosecutors Perpetuate Prejudice in Jury Selection

[Joanne98]

For OpEdNews: Linn Washington - Writer

After spending more than ten years in jail without a formal sentence, Curtis Flowers now can point to another unenviable distinction he's the first person in U.S. history subjected to six murder trials for the same crime.

Two of the five previous trials of this Mississippi man charged with the 1996 murder of four people in a rural town ended in jury deadlocks. State courts voided Flowers' three convictions, each time citing outrageous misconduct by prosecutors.

One instance of prosecutorial error in the tortured Flowers trial saga involved biased jury selection procedure so egregious that Mississippi's Supreme Court tagged it the worst case of "racial discrimination we have ever seen"" an extraordinary declaration considering that state's history of over-the-top racism.

The fact that prosecutors flogged Flowers with racially bigoted jury selection practices exposes once again an oily injustice that has befouled court proceedings in the Gulf States and beyond for nearly two centuries.

The U.S. Supreme Court finally barred prosecutors from blatantly biased jury selection practices in its 1986 Batson ruling. However, "illegal racial discrimination in jury selection remains widespread" according to a recent report by the Equal Justice Initiative that examined practices in eight southern states.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Prosecutors-Perpetuate-Pre-by-Linn-Washington-100625-802.html

[bemildred]

1. Our entire criminal justice system is corrupt and rotten to the core.

When it works at all, it works badly.

[papadog]

2. Where's Holder and the USDOJ?

Why is this behavior allowed to persist in todays America? If the DOJ isn't about Justice, and this case screams out for justice, why is it in existence? C'mon Obama, get involved with what's happening to the PEOPLE of this country not just Big Business.