Here is a Texas news source with info on the case, and a day-by-day summary.
Here is what it said about jury selection:
12-person jury with six alternates was finalized Wednesday afternoon in a Collin County courtroom. The selection process resulted in a panel of 11 women and seven men. There are no Black jurors.
The final phase of jury selection grew tense when defense attorneys lodged a formal objection during the second round of strikes. The defense argued that the state improperly struck down three potential Black female jurors who were “similarly situated” to a white female juror allowed to remain on the panel.
Prosecutors strongly denied that race played a factor. Assistant District Attorney Dewey Mitchell clarified that all three women were struck because they listed their occupations as educators. Because the fatal incident occurred at a school-sponsored athletic function involving school-aged children, prosecutors seemingly did not want traditional educators on the panel.
State District Judge John Roach Jr. ultimately sided with the prosecution, allowing the strikes to stand. While one educator was successfully seated on the 12-person jury, she is an esthetician at a trade school and does not work with high school-aged children.
I believe I read (possibly in this thread?) that they made a Batson challenge. Which is a fancy way of saying they alleged that the prosecution intentionally struck potential jurors on the basis of race.
Has there ever been a guilty verdict that was overturned solely because of the racial composition of the jury? (such as all-non-black) I’m sure there have been appeals about that but don’t recall any successful one.
Flowers was convicted of murder, but it was overturned due to an improper jury racial makeup, and the state dropped the charges because they decided it would be impossible to convict.
And this other decision was made just a week-and-a-half ago. This ruling referenced that Flowers case.
Ah okay. In that case, it may actually be in the best interests of the defendant for the jury to be non-black, if they feel his odds are much better at winning at appeal rather than being acquitted.
It’s not the jury being all-non-black or even (as in some cases) all-white that creates a path to an appeal based on the composition of the jury. Rather, the issue, if there is one, is the prosecution striking potential jurors specifically on the basis of race.
The defense must, in turn, at least allege that the prosecution did so to have a chance at appeal. If the defense just lets the prosecution put together an all-white jury or, as here, exclude all the black potential jurors without objection to try and get a do-over, it won’t work.
Upthread I mentioned the Batson challenge. The eponymous case being:
What’s much more common and all-too-viable is for prosecutors to strike black potential jurors, but then, when challenged by the defense, out forward some perfunctory alternative explanation. In reality, it’s much easier for the prosecution to strike jurors on the basis of race than it is for the defense to prove that they did.
Yes, there is no legal “racial quota”, so the makeup itself is not enough to appeal on, but if what led to that makeup was improper and racially motivated, then it can be appealed and has at times been overturned. I guess that’s a question of semantics.
It’s more than semantics. It’s a lot harder to prove that jurors were excluded on the basis of race than it is that all jurors of a particular race were excluded.
It’s not an all-white jury. I heard that about half the jury is “non-white” although none of them are black/African-American. Most likely, they are Hispanic, or possibly of Asian descent.
As for not seating blacks, I wonder if they were concerned that black jurors who voted to convict would be in danger from KA’s worshippers (and let’s face it, that’s almost what they are at this point).
A lot of people still don’t understand that Blacks can slaughter each other carte blanche, but America’s racist Right will not tolerate the death of even one white person even if it be in self-defense.
If we apply the principle the way you’re using it — that a defendant deserves extra consideration simply because they acted rashly under stress while using a weapon in a confrontation — then that would apply to every defendant who escalated a situation and then panicked. At that point, we wouldn’t even have a meaningful category of crimes of passion, because any impulsive act could be excused as “stress” that the defendant created themselves.
Holmes’ quote only makes sense when someone is reacting to another person’s weapon. When the defendant is the one who introduced the weapon, the threat dynamic is reversed — the armed person has more control over the encounter and less objective reason to fear than the unarmed one. That’s why the Holmes quote doesn’t map onto cases where the defendant introduced the weapon.
Christ, at least skim the quote before you start flinging profanity. Holmes was talking about reacting to someone else’s weapon. If you think that has “nothing to do with a weapon,” then you’re arguing with your own imagination, not me.
I’m bowing out. The moment this got moved to the Pit the signal‑to‑noise ratio dropped to zero. If people can’t be bothered to read the quote before screaming, there’s nothing left to discuss.
Again, from the facts as they’re currently known, we don’t actually know who escalated how much. It might yet be that the others in the tent had already escalated to a point that he might have been expected to not be acting rationally at the time he drew the knife.
As a juror, I would absolutely consider the defendant’s state of mind if it was brought to my attention by the defense or the prosecution. Every defendant has a right to an impartial jury made up people who will fairly determine the facts of the case.