Nevada Inmate on Death Row Wins Bid to Revive Habeas Petition

A Nevada prisoner on death row can pursue his bid for post-conviction relief after a federal appeals court said the state misapplied federal law barring discriminatory jury strikes.

The Nevada Supreme Court correctly acknowledged that the exclusion of three out of four Black would-be jurors is sufficient to make out a threshold case for a Batson violation, but it made a mistake when it discounted that pattern because it found two of the three removals to be nondiscriminatory, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said.

Under Batson v. Kentucky and subsequent cases, a party can object to ...