High Court Allows New trial For Death Row Inmate Claiming That Blacks Were Improperly Restricted From The Jury

By Hope YenAssociated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. Supreme Court allowed a new trial to proceed Monday for a black man sentenced to death 18 years ago in a case in which prosecutors improperly restricted opportunities for blacks to serve on his jury. The court, with comment, declined to hear Philadelphia’s appeal in the case of Arnold Holloway, 62, who allegedly murdered a fellow drug dealer in 1980. Monday’s action represents a defeat for Philadelphia prosecutors, who have seen a string of convictions set aside in recent years because of claims they tried to keep minorities off jury pools in cases involving black defendants. Holloway was convicted in 1986 by a jury of nine whites and three blacks, plus two white alternate jurors, after prosecutors used 11 of their 12 peremptory challenges during jury selection to eliminate blacks. In legal filings, the district attorney’s office denied racial bias was a factor and argued there were other reasons for the exclusions, such as the fear that a juror “might well have known some of the people involved in this case.” The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, ruling the prosecutors’ actions violated a 1986 U.S. Supreme Court holding that race alone can’t be a basis for a peremptory challenge. “We are troubled by the lack of race-neutrality in each of the prosecutor’s explanations, and perhaps more troubled by the lack of any explanations at all for eight of his 11 strikes,” the 3rd Circuit stated. The courts have been closely examining Philadelphia’s jury-selection practices since 1997, when District Attorney Lynne Abraham, then locked in an re-election campaign with a former prosecutor, released a training video in which her opponent told rookie colleagues to keep poor blacks off juries because they were less likely to convict. Subsequently, Pennsylvania courts have ordered new trials for several death row inmates who argued that blacks were improperly kept off their juries. They include William Bazemore, who was subsequently convicted in retrial and sentenced to life in prison; Donald Hardcastle, who was granted a new trial in 2001; and Harold Wilson, whose 1989 conviction for three murders was overturned last year.