A death row inmate who says anti-gay bias tainted his sentence wants last term’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling on racial bias in the jury room to save him. But a legal scholar told Bloomberg Law the inmate may be raising the issue too soon.
The case pits two evolving areas of the law against one another: gay rights and the sanctity of the jury room.
Charles Rhines points to the Supreme Court’s divided decision last term in Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado for support. There the court pierced the otherwise sacrosanct veil of jury deliberations to undo convictions marred by racist remarks. ...