Monday, January 5, 2009

Not the Kind of Juror I Like

It's not enough that the Brevard State Attorney's Office uses snitches and fraudulent scientists. According to the Florida Supreme Court (FSC), they also exclude jurors on the basis of race in violation of the Constitution. See, for example, last week's ruling in Nowell v. State in which the FSC overturned a first-degree murder conviction because of the state attorney's shenanigans.

State Attorney Parker excluded a Hispanic juror because Parker did not "particularly like" the juror and didn't think the juror was "going to be the kind of juror that [Parker] would like." Realizing that this excuse wasn't gonna fly, Parker claimed that he excluded the Hispanic juror because "he appears young." Here's the thing: Parker had no problem with and did not seek to exclude a similarly young white juror. The FSC saw through these and other prosecutorial excuses for striking the Hispanic juror, calling them "pretextual" and "based upon reasons that [are] not genuine." In other words, the FSC told prosecutors, stop excluding jurors on the basis of race and claiming it's really about something else. 

Note to Brevard prosecutors: It's 2009. If you're gonna unconstitutionally exclude a juror on the basis of race, you'd better come up with a better excuse than that. Kudos to the FSC for calling the state attorney out. 

And nice job Brevard prosecutors. In your overzealousness and close-mindedness you lost yet another conviction. I feel safer already. 

1 comment:

1American4Justice said...

LOL, Bevard has some really brilliant attorney's working for the them, and you are right we are all safer now that we let the murderer go free.