Dropping Black Juror Isn’t Discriminatory: California Justices

A state trial judge didn’t err in finding no discrimination in a prosecutor’s challenge of a Black juror in a double-homicide case in which the all-white jury convicted a Black defendant, the California Supreme Court ruled.

The 6-1 ruling on Thursday drew a sharp dissent from Associate Justice Goodwin Liu, who has taken the same position in previous cases. Liu cited a “remarkable uniformity of results” in which the court not once found a prima facie case of discrimination in any of the 42 death penalty cases reviewing juror challenges.

The majority said the juror’s misgivings about the ...