Warning: This Is Very Upsetting

The Supreme Court, racism, and a really bad crime.

Should a Black man with schizophrenia who murdered his white ex-wife in the throes of a psychotic delusion be put to death by a jury in which multiple members expressed vehement opposition to interracial marriage?

Clearly not, right?

And if his lawyers failed to object to or question those jurors in depth about their beliefs, that is classic ineffective assistance of counsel?

 Right? 

Well, not on Mitch McConnell's Supreme Court where the six conservative Supreme Court justices bared their filthy, racist asses yesterday for us all to see. Here's the dissent from denial of certiorari penned by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.Warning: It is very  upsetting.

In 2004, Andre Lee Thomas, a Black man who suffered from lifelong, documented mental illness, murdered his white ex-wife Laura Boren, their four-year-old son Andre, and her one-year-old daughter. Using three separate knives because he didn't want to mix their blood, he removed their hearts from their bodies. He then stabbed himself in the chest and lay down waiting to die. When the wound did not prove fatal, he left the scene with his family's hearts in his pockets.

Thomas immediately confessed to the crimes and was originally committed to a mental hospital for psychosis. But later the state decided that he'd been temporarily insane due to consuming large quantities of cough syrup and charged Thomas with capital murder. While in jail, he removed one of his own eyes. Years later he removed the other and ate it .

At trial, Thomas was represented by two court-appointed lawyers, one of whom was suffering from pancreatic cancer while the other had never tried a capital case. They failed to object for cause to any of the four jurors who expressed opposition to interracial marriage, including the one who "opined that such relationships were against God’s will and that people 'should stay with [their] Blood Line.'” In fact, they concluded voir dire with unused peremptory strikes — that is, chances to strike a juror for no cause given.

During the penalty phase, prosecutors called three white women and a Hispanic woman with whom Thomas had sought romantic relationships as witnesses, demanding that he be put to death lest he later be paroled from a life sentence, and “Are you going to take the risk about [Thomas] asking your daughter out, or your granddaughter out?”

The racism was gross, and unsubtle. And it worked .

The jury sentenced Thomas to death in 2005, and yesterday, the six conservative justices said that was perfectly fine, rejecting his ineffective assistance of counsel claim as well as allegations of jury bias.

God bless Justice Sotomayor for calling out the absolute bullshit of this argument:

There is no doubt that the facts of this case make out the “constitutionally significant likelihood” under which specific questioning is required. This is a capital case involving interracial violence where three seated jurors and an alternate expressed prejudicial views. Had defense counsel requested individual voir dire of the three prospective jurors, it would have been reversible error for the trial judge to deny that request. See id., at 36 (plurality opinion); id., at 36–37 (majority opinion). Counsel’s failure to do so was constitutionally ineffective.

She also points out that Thomas's trial counsel submitted two conflicting affidavits: one when he filed a habeas petition, in which they attested that their failure to question jurors about racial bias "was not intentional," and one on behalf of the state's opposition to Thomas's appeal, in which they falsely claimed to have questioned the jurors sufficiently to suss out bias and to have refrained from further interrogation for fear of alienating the panel.

Trial counsel’s unusual, subsequently filed affidavits on behalf of the State are contradicted by the record: Trial counsel claims to have questioned the potential jurors who declared opposition to interracial marriage, but the record shows that counsel did not ask any questions at all related to interracial marriage of three of the four who expressed opposition. That alone demonstrates ineffectiveness. There are numerous ways to broach sensitive but necessary subjects during voir dire without invoking the ire of jurors.

It is no doubt true that there may sometimes be strategic reasons not to examine jurors for racial bias, but counsel cited none here. To the contrary, the hostility the jurors expressed in their questionnaires strongly suggested that their presence would infect the proceedings with racial bias. Counsel’s subsequent affidavits therefore “resembl[e] more a post hoc rationalization of counsel’s conduct than an accurate description of their” strategic decisions during voir dire.

"No jury deciding whether to recommend a death sentence should be tainted by potential racial biases that could infect its deliberations or decision, particularly where the case involved an interracial crime," Justice Sotomayor wrote. Because that is apparently a thing which has to be said in the year 2022.

"It is ultimately the duty of the courts 'to confront racial animus in the justice system,'” she went on, citing a 2017 holding that evidence of racial animus by a juror was grounds for a new trial.

That responsibility requires courts, including this one, vigilantly to safeguard the fairness of criminal trials by ensuring that jurors do not harbor, or at the very least could put aside, racially biased sentiments. To address these “most grave and serious statements of racial bias” is “to ensure that our legal system remains capable of coming ever closer to the promise of equal treatment under the law that is so central to a functioning democracy.”

When we say that the rule of law is under attack, we don't just mean a bunch of goons descending on Congress screaming to "Hang Mike Pence." We mean that our court system is captured by rank partisans who enforce structural racism by allowing the state to execute a Black man, despite clear evidence of juror bias and ineffective counsel.

And for the foreseeable future, we are stuck with this fucking disaster. But not forever, assuming we can hold the line at the ballot box.

So, yeah, "just vote" is a rotten solution in this ridiculous country where the leaders so often choose their voters, and not the other way 'round. But it happens to be the one you can do in just a month. So ... show up.

And PS: Jury duty sucks. But if you don't sit on those juries, the racists will.

[ Thomas v. Lumpkin, SCOTUS Docket ]

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