Supreme Court Rules Miller-El Claim Must Be Considered
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 3/6/2003
Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that Thomas Joe Miller-El, an African-American Texas death row inmate, must be allowed to present evidence to lower courts of racial discrimination in the jury selection process of his 1986 capital murder case. In the 8-1 ruling, the Court found that Miller-El had presented sufficient evidence that a "reasonable" jurist could conclude that Dallas County prosecutors employed "race bias" during Miller-El's jury selection by excluding ten of eleven eligible African-Americans from the jury pool. Therefore, the Court reasoned, Miller-El is entitled to a hearing on that question.In the opinion, the majority warned the federal courts of appeals against being too quick to disallow constitutional challenges to the convictions or sentences handed out by the lower courts.
In his February 1986 murder trial, only one member of Miller-El's jury was African-American. After his conviction, Miller-El appealed the conviction, claiming that his Sixth Amendment rights to a fair trial had been violated.
Lower courts had denied Miller-El's petition for a federal habeas corpus hearing, asserting that Mr. Miller-El had not presented "clear and convincing" evidence of racial discrimination is the selection of his jury. Justice Kennedy, writing for the Court, held the 5th Circuit had used the wrong standard to evaluate Mr. Miller-El's claim. Rather, he stated, the question is whether the petitioner had presented a substantial constitutional claim in a manner that was open to disagreement among reasonable judges. In bringing the racial bias case before the Court, Miller-El's lawyers explained a pattern of race bias by Dallas district attorney prosecutors during jury selection, citing training manuals dating back more than 25 years that claim "minority races almost always empathize with the defendant." They also cited a 1986 report by the Dallas Morning News that showed 90 percent of eligible African-Americans were excluded by prosecutors using peremptory challenges in 15 death penalty cases from 1980 to 1986.
This ruling, however, does not necessarily mean that Miller-El's conviction will be overturned. The Court was clear that it was not ruling on the merits of the case, but on the question of whether Mr. Miller-El had a right to have his colorable claim of racial bias in jury selection heard by the lower federal court. "We conclude, on our review of the record at this stage, that the district court did not give full consideration to the substantial evidence petitioner put forth," Justice Kennedy wrote.
Justice Clarence Thomas, the Court's sole dissenter, contended that because there was no direct evidence of "purposeful discrimination" by prosecutors, Miller-El's request for a hearing on the question was rightly denied. While this decision is an important reminder to the lower federal courts that colorable constitutional claims cannot be dismissed too easily, without some opportunity for a hearing, this decision is likely to have the greatest effect on other Texas death row inmates convicted by the Dallas District Attorney's Office hoping to bring their claims of racial bias before district courts in federal habeas corpus proceedings.
