Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Court Backs White Defendant Rights
> WASHINGTON (AP) -- White defendants can challenge
> indictments against them based on alleged
> discrimination against blacks in the selection of the
> grand jury's members, the Supreme Court ruled today.
>
> The court unanimously allowed a Louisiana man convicted
> of murder to attack the charges against him on a claim
> that blacks were prevented from serving as grand jury
> foreman.
>
> In Louisiana, grand jury foremen are chosen by the
> judge, separate from the random selection of other
> grand jurors.
>
> Murder defendant Terry Campbell, ``like any other white
> defendant, has standing to raise an equal protection
> challenge to discrimination against black persons in
> the selection of his grand jury,'' Justice Anthony M.
> Kennedy wrote for the court.
>
> ``Regardless of his or her skin color, (a defendant)
> suffers a significant injury in fact when the
> composition of the grand jury is tainted by racial
> discrimination,'' Kennedy said.
>
> Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia dissented
> from that portion of the court's ruling, saying white
> defendants should not be allowed to raise a claim on
> behalf of blacks.
>
> ``I fail to understand how the rights of blacks
> excluded from jury service can be vindicated by letting
> a white murderer go free,'' Thomas wrote for the two.
>
> In other action, the court today:
>
> --Resolved a dispute over the federal taxes owed to the
> Internal Revenue Service by the nation's property and
> casualty insurance companies for 1987. The ruling, a
> billion-dollar victory for the IRS, upheld the tax
> agency's method of calculating the insurance companies'
> tax liability for that key year.
>
> --Barred some homeowners facing foreclosure from trying
> to cancel the mortgage loan on grounds the lender
> violated a federal truth-in-lending law.
>
> In the grand jury case, the Louisiana Supreme Court had
> upheld Campbell's murder conviction in the shooting
> death of James L. Sharp on Jan. 11, 1992. Sharp had
> accompanied Campbell's estranged wife to her home after
> an evening out.
>
> Today's decision, however, revives Campbell's challenge
> of that Evangeline Parish conviction that drew a life
> sentence without parole.
>
> He says blacks in the parish were systematically
> excluded from serving as foremen.
>
> In almost all Louisiana parishes, 11 members of
> 12-member grand juries are randomly chosen after the
> foreman is picked separately by the judge from the pool
> of potential grand jurors.
>
> From January 1976 through August 1993, all 35 people
> who served as grand jury foreman in Evangeline Parish
> were white.
>
> In a series of decisions since 1986, the Supreme Court
> has barred lawyers from excluding prospective trial
> jurors because of their race or gender. In 1991, the
> high court said criminal defendants can object to
> race-based exclusions of trial jurors even if the
> defendant and the excluded jurors are not of the same
> race.
>
> Campbell contended those equal-protection holdings
> should also apply to the selection of grand jury
> foremen. Today's decision agreed.
>
> However, the Supreme Court also ruled in 1984 that a
> defendant could not challenge the selection of a
> foreman from the members of a federal grand jury
> because the selection did not change the panel's
> composition.
>
> The Louisiana Supreme Court said that because Campbell
> was white, he had no legal standing to challenge the
> exclusion of blacks as grand jury foremen. The court
> also said the grand jury foreman's role appeared to be
> mainly ``ministerial,'' and therefore, the selection
> would have little effect on a defendant's rights.
>
> Kennedy wrote for the highest court today that the
> Louisiana court was wrong on both counts.
>
> In Louisiana, the selection of grand jury foreman by
> the judge affects the composition of the panel, and if
> the allegation of bias is true, the judge's
> impartiality would be called into question, Kennedy
> said.
>
> His opinion was joined in full by Chief Justice William
> H. Rehnquist and Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day
> O'Connor, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and
> Stephen G. Breyer.
>
> Thomas and Scalia agreed Campbell could challenge the
> indictment on grounds his due-process rights were
> violated.
>
> The case is Campbell vs. Louisiana, 96-1584.
--
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