James Fulford
Earlier: Justice Sotomayor: Intelligent, Well-informed, Reasonable-Minded People Must Be Banned From Capital Case Juries
Mark Joseph Stern, who was criticizing rule by judges over the end of mask mandates, is in Slate with a plea to have some judge allow black killer-for-hire Kristopher Love, to get away with the murder for hire of pediatric dentist Dr. Kendra Kay Hatcher.
A Racist Juror Helped Send a Black Man to Death Row. Why Doesn’t SCOTUS Care?
Another 6–3 decision illustrates how the conservative majority can change the law by doing nothing.
By Mark Joseph Stern, April 18, 2022
On Monday, the Supreme Court turned away an appeal from a Black man named Kristopher Love, whose death sentence was tainted by a juror’s racism. By a 6 - 3 vote, the conservative majority refused to enforce precedents protecting capital defendants from racial bias, saving itself the trouble of formally overruling them. Once again, the Supreme Court exercised its power to change the law by doing nothing, furthering its quest to subvert the normal operation of law and speed up executions in America.
Racism pervades every aspect of the death penalty, but it’s not often as obvious as it was at Love’s 2018 trial. Love’s attorneys asked prospective jurors whether they believe that some races “tend to be more violent than others” in an attempt to smoke out illicit bias. One juror, [Redacted]—who is white—answered “yes,” elaborating: “Statistics show more violent crimes are committed by certain races. I believe in statistics.”
During voir dire, [Redacted] doubled down on his beliefs. He told Love’s defense attorneys as well as the state prosecutors that he beloved the “non-white” races to be the “more violent races.” He claimed that “news reports and criminology classes” bore this out, but added that his views were based on “statistics,” not “personal feelings towards one race or another.” [Redacted] then insisted that he would be a fair and impartial juror with no bias against Love on account of his race.
In Texas, defendants become eligible for capital punishment only after a jury has concluded that they’re likely to “commit criminal acts of violence” in the future. [Redacted]’s belief that Love was a member of the “more violent races” therefore posed an obvious danger: As a juror, he might take Love’s race into account when gauging his violent propensities, infecting the death sentence with an odious racial stereotype.
Love’s attorney moved to strike [Redacted]from the jury “for cause”—because of his bias—but the trial judge denied the challenge without explanation. The defense attorney then sought to use a peremptory challenge, which allows the exclusion of a prospective juror without any specific reason. But he had already used up his allotted peremptory challenges, as well as two extras that the trial judge had granted. The judge seated [Redacted] on the jury, which found Love guilty and likely to commit violent crime in the future. This finding rendered him eligible for the death penalty, which the judge imposed. [More]
I may say that the name of Kendra Hatcher, the victim, doesn't appear in the article, nor do the circumstances of the murder.
You have to read the Daily Mail for that:
Hitman, who gunned down an innocent Dallas dentist 'on the orders of her love rival', bursts out of court kicking a chair and tripping over his shackles as his tearful sister testifies at his sentencing
Kristopher Love, 34, jumped out of his seat and kicked his chair on Tuesday
Love has been quiet in his Dallas hearings so far but tried to leave the room as his sister tearfully took the stand and described how 'a piece of him was gone'
He walked towards courtroom's hold-over cell but tripped on his ankle shackles
The jury was given a recess before continuing with the hearing
He was convicted of capital murder last week for killing dentist Kendra Hatcher
He was allegedly hired as a hitman by jealous woman Brenda Delgado who wanted Love to kill Hatcher who was dating her ex-boyfriend
Prosecutors are seeking the death sentence
By Marlene Lenthang For Dailymail.com
Published: 10:16 EDT, 31 October 2018 | Updated: 10:54 EDT, 31 October 2018
The thing is, everything the juror said about differential violence between races is true. Steve Sailer tried to explain it to the notorious anti-death penalty maniac Sister Helen Prejean: