Justices reject Black death row inmate’s appeal over jurors’ racial prejudice

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to review an appeal from a Black death row inmate who claims his case was tainted by the racial prejudice of several members of the all-white jury.

Inmate Andre Thomas in 2005 was convicted and sentenced to death by a jury in Sherman, Texas, for the murder of his estranged wife, who was white, their biracial son and her daughter from a prior relationship. The jury included three members who expressed opposition to interracial marriage.

The court’s conservatives denied Thomas’s appeal in a brief unsigned order without explanation, leaving intact his death sentence.

The move prompted a 12-page dissent from the court’s three liberals, who said “the errors in this case render Thomas’ death sentence not only unreliable, but unconstitutional.”

“No jury deciding whether to recommend a death sentence should be tainted by potential racial biases that could infect its deliberation or decision, particularly where the case involved an interracial crime,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent that was joined by fellow liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The court’s three liberals said Thomas’s conviction and death sentence “clearly violate” the constitutional guarantee of adequate legal representation. 

The Supreme Court’s denial of Thomas’s appeal leaves in place the judgment by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Maurie Levin, a lawyer for Thomas, criticized the court’s move, referred to as a denial of certiorari.

“Today’s cert denial in Mr. Thomas’s case abdicates the Court’s role and responsibility to ‘confront racial animus in the justice system,'” she said, citing Supreme Court precedent. “Instead, the Court failed to even attempt to ensure ‘the promise of equal treatment under the law that is so central to a functioning democracy.’”

Updated at 1:20 p.m.