Sotomayor Leads Dissent as SCOTUS Refuses to Take Up Death Penalty Case

The right-wing majority of the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday voted not to take up the case of Andre Thomas, a death row inmate in Texas, despite evidence that the jury that convicted him of murder in 2005 included jurors who were racist.

The vote was 6-3, with liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting.

"Thomas' case undermines principles this court has repeatedly and forcefully protected: the right to an impartial jury, and the recognition that overt racial bias in the criminal justice system must be eradicated."

Thomas, who is Black and was diagnosed as having schizophrenia after his arrest, was convicted of murdering his wife, their son, and his wife's daughter in 2004. Thomas' wife was white and their child was biracial.

Three of the jurors expressed disapproval of interracial marriage before they were named members of the all-white jury, which Thomas' attorney, Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said in court filings violated the defendant's right to an impartial jury of his peers.

"Thomas' case undermines principles this court has repeatedly and forcefully protected: the right to an impartial jury, and the recognition that overt racial bias in the criminal justice system must be eradicated," Ifill said in a court filing.

One of the jurors said in a questionnaire that they believed interracial marriage is "harmful for the children involved because they do not have a specific race to belong to," while another said people should "stay with [their] Blood Line."

As Slate journalist Mark Joseph Stern wrote on social media, state prosecutors at times appeared to be seeking out jurors with racist views.

The lawyers representing Thomas in the original case did not object to the three jurors.

Ifill called Tuesday's ruling "very disappointing."

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, argued in court filings that all the jurors had been questioned about racial bias and claimed it had been determined that the jury could render an unbiased verdict.

In her dissenting opinion on Tuesday, Sotomayor said Thomas' "conviction and death sentence clearly violate the constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel."

"No jury deciding whether to recommend a death sentence should be tainted by potential racial biases that could infect its deliberations or decision, particularly where the case involved an interracial crime," said Sotomayor.

"The errors in this case render Thomas' death sentence not only unreliable, but unconstitutional," the justice added. "I would not permit the state to execute Andre Thomas in light of the ineffective assistance that he received."