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| In Dallas, Dismissal of Black Jurors Leads to Appeal by Death Row Inmate |
| By New York Times |
| Published: 02/25/2002 |
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Carol Boggess says she was 'eager and willing to serve' on the jury in the 1986 capital murder trial of Thomas Miller-El in Dallas. When questioned by prosecutors, Ms. Boggess, an occupational therapist, said she strongly supported capital punishment. Wayman Kennedy, a Sunday school teacher and church deacon, also wanted to be on the jury and told prosecutors he felt confident of his ability to impose a death penalty. So did Billy Jean Fields, a postal worker. Miller-El is black. He was charged with shooting two white hotel clerks, one of them fatally, during a robbery in November 1985. Fields, Kennedy and Boggess are also black. All were excluded from the jury panel by Dallas County prosecutors, as were seven of eight other blacks interviewed as prospective jurors. The jury the prosecutors accepted was composed of nine whites, one Filipino, one Hispanic and one black man who told prosecutors that he thought that execution was too easy, and that the appropriate punishment for murderers was to 'pour some honey on them and stake them out over an ant bed.' Miller-El, 50, is scheduled to be executed by the state of Texas on Feb. 21, but his lawyers say the jury that convicted him was selected according to longstanding racially discriminatory standards of the Dallas County district attorney's office. His lawyers have asked the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute Miller-El's sentence and have appealed his case to the United States Supreme Court. The court decides this week whether to take the case. Miller-El's lawyers say his case highlights the continuing exclusion of minorities from juries across the country. The Dallas County district attorney's office has contested the plea for clemency and opposes review by the Supreme Court. 'There's no evidence showing that there was any racial discrimination,' said Lori Ordiway, chief of the appellate division of the district attorney's office. Ordiway said the blacks had been struck for 'race-neutral reasons.' |
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