Exclusion of Jews and Blacks from Calif. Death Juries
The New York Times reports:
The convictions of dozens of death-row inmates in California are coming under legal scrutiny because of accusations that Jews and black women were excluded from juries in capital trials in Alameda County as "standard practice."
The allegation is contained in an affidavit filed in a habeas appeal of a death row inmate. It was written by the prosecutor:
Mr. Quatman, who worked for 26 years as a deputy district attorney and prosecuted the case, said the trial judge, Stanley Golde, advised him during jury selection that "no Jew would vote to send a defendant to the gas chamber."
"Judge Golde was only telling me what I already should have known to do," Mr. Quatman's statement said. "It was standard practice to exclude Jewish jurors in death cases."
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