Rape case: (Supreme) Court tosses 9th Circuit racism ruling

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

(03-21) 15:35 PDT WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court reinstated a Sacramento man's conviction and life sentence Monday for the rape of a 72-year-old woman in her apartment, dismissing an appellate court's decision that the prosecutor may have had racial reasons for removing two African Americans from the jury.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco had granted a new trial to Steven Frank Jackson in July. The court said the prosecutor at Jackson's 2004 trial had used pretexts to justify his challenges to the two African American jurors, because the reasons he gave could have applied to jurors he left on the panel.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/21/BAUF1IG9CC.DTL

[Proletariatprincess]

1. The supremes never fail to vote for conviction...

I haven't followed this case closely and I am not a lawyer, but why am I not surprised that this Supreme Court would never let such an insignifigant thing as racism be grounds for a new trial. I have come to expect the worse from this group and have also come to believe that the whole US Justice system is totally dysfunctional. And that is especially true of how we choose juries in criminal cases.
Justice Stevens was right in December 2000 when he said the big loser in the Bush v Gore decision was the credibility of the Court.
Impeachment proceedings should have begun at that time. Too late now even though Scalia and Thomas are flouting judicial ethics regularly. Nothing will come of that. Too bad.

[speltwon]

5. That's demonstrably false rhetoric.

Do I really need to present counterexamples to the claim you just made? And this was a unanimous decision. Are you placing all the SCOTUS Justices in the same camp? Because this case was clear enough on the law, that it was unanimous. Certainly not remotely analogous to something like Bush v. Gore.

[Proletariatprincess]

6. The law is an ass

and so are the justices.

[Unvanguard]

2. Unanimous reversal of a Ninth Circuit AEDPA case.

No surprise there.

[happyslug]

3. The Actual Decision

The Court decision is directed by the "Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA)" which basically says that unless there is clear and convincing evidence (Through that wording is NOT actual used in AEDPA) that the State court used excuses to cover race as a reason to object to a juror, the state decision must stand.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/10-797.pdf

[No Elephants]

7. A law of the legislature dictating how a court must find. Equal Pro? Separation of powers?

I know Congress has powers over jurisdiction, but this stinks.

[PoliticAverse]

4. Unanimous reversal: "That decision is as inexplicable as it is unexplained. It is reversed. "

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/10-797.ZPC.html

[No Elephants]

8. Unanimous.

:puke: