The Supreme Court on Sept. 26 temporarily stayed a federal appeals court ruling requiring that Alabama death row inmate Michael Sockwell be retried for murder.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit had ruled on June 30 that Sockwell’s conviction was unconstitutional because prosecutors engaged in racial discrimination during jury selection.
Justice Clarence Thomas, who oversees emergency appeals from Alabama, issued an administrative stay of the 11th Circuit ruling. An administrative stay gives the justices more time to consider an emergency appeal.
A divided three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit had ruled that Alabama prosecutors violated Sockwell’s constitutional rights by excluding blacks from the jury at his trial.
The ruling made Sockwell eligible for retrial. He was convicted in the 1988 killing of Montgomery County Deputy Sheriff Isaiah Harris. Although Sockwell was sentenced to death, his lawyers said their client’s IQ is low enough to make him ineligible for the death penalty.
The panel majority specifically found that prosecutors violated Sockwell’s 14th Amendment rights when they “repeatedly and purposefully” turned away potential black jurors who were deemed more sympathetic to him because of their shared race.
Hellbound and Down 