WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court justices on Tuesday
considered whether a Louisiana prosecutor who compared a black murder
defendant to O.J. Simpson used racial bias to engineer an all-white
jury.
The defendant, Allen Snyder, was convicted and sentenced to death in
1996 for killing a married male friend of his estranged wife, who was
injured in the same knife attack.
During sentencing in the New Orleans trial, the prosecutor told
jurors that circumstances resembled the highly publicized murder case
against black football star O.J. Simpson, who "got away with it."
Snyders lawyers later cited that comment as evidence the prosecutor
had tried to inject race into the trial and wrongly used his powers
to keep black people off the jury.
"They (excluded) all the blacks they could in this case," Snyders
attorney Stephen Bright told the nations highest court, which heard
arguments in the case on Tuesday.
"I think what this prosecutor learned from O.J. Simpson ... is that
you dont let blacks on the jury."
A racially mixed jury in 1995 acquitted Simpson in the stabbing
deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron
Goldman. He was later found liable for Goldmans wrongful death in a
civil trial before a mostly white jury.
The issue before the eight white and one black Supreme Court
justices is whether the Louisiana Supreme Court failed to properly
weigh the charges of racial bias in jury selection. Snyder is seeking
a new trial.
The high court since 1986 has limited the authority of defense
lawyers and prosecutors to exclude jurors for no reason. It has ruled
that jurors cannot be excluded simply because of their race.
The justices focused on whether Snyders lawyers should have more
aggressively challenged the juror exclusions and questioned whether
prosecutors failed to sufficiently justify why they blocked potential
black jurors.
Some justices showed interest in the defense argument that
mentioning the Simpson case demonstrated an attempt to inject race
into the trial.
"Do you think the prosecutor would have made the analogy if there
had been a black juror on the jury?" Chief Justice John Roberts
asked, prompting a long silence before the attorney representing
Louisiana said he would have.
The attorney, Terry Boudreaux, said the comparison was made because
Snyder tried to feign insanity after the killings, similar to
Simpsons highly publicized flight from police in a white Ford Bronco.
(Editing by Lori Santos and Doina Chiacu)
