One more example of win at any cost prosecution, without regard to the ethical side of the law.
Its just a waste of time, judicial resources, and money.
You do not strike all the black members of a venire panel, while not striking others, of a non-protected class, who give the same answers and expect to survive scrutiny. Then to top it off make a speech resorting to references to the OJ case and how this case isn't different and do the job the LA jury did not.
Prosecutors and our trials and our actions must be like Caesar's wife: pure and above suspicion.
My prediction? This one will come screaming back for re-trial.
Echoes of O.J. Simpson trial heard in case before U.S. Supreme Court
Jennifer A. Dlouhy: Hearst
WASHINGTON — Supreme Court justices Tuesday questioned whether a Louisiana prosecutor unconstitutionally kept black people from serving on an all-white jury and whether his courtroom comments about O.J. Simpson were evidence of racial bias in the trial.
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hat 1996 trial ended with a murder conviction, after the prosecutor compared the black defendant to Simpson and said “the perpetrator in that case ... got away with it.”
During oral arguments in the case Tuesday, several justices signaled that they believed the Simpson references were evidence that racial considerations permeated the prosecution's handling of the case, beginning with jury selection.
Chief Justice John Roberts questioned whether “the prosecutor would have made that analogy if there had been a black person on the jury.”
And Associate Justice David Souter asked Louisiana Assistant Attorney General Terry Boudreaux if the Simpson reference would have been used had the defendant been white. When Boudreaux replied that it would have been, Souter said, “I will be candid and say to you that under the circumstances of the record in front of us, I find that highly unlikely.”
The crux of the case before the Supreme Court on Tuesday is whether the Louisiana prosecutor violated the defendant's due process rights under the Constitution by discriminating against black potential jurors and stacking the jury with whites.
