Defense Team: Ga. Court Case Reveals Prosecutor Notes Striking Black Jurors From Trial
Newly released notes from the prosecution team during jury selection in a 1977 case show the letter “W” next to white prospective jurors and the letter “N” next to black jurors.
The defense team for a man serving life without parole in Georgia wants a new trial based on new evidence showing how an all-white jury was selected. They argue decades-old notes from the prosecution show systematic racial discrimination.
Johnny Lee Gates was originally convicted in 1977 of the rape and murder of 19-year-old Katrina Wright in Columbus.
Newly released notes from the prosecution team during jury selection show the letter “W” next to white prospective jurors and the letter “N” next to black jurors.
“They indicate that the prosecutors identified the black prospective jurors from the start, singled them out in their notes and then struck them to obtain all-white juries,” said attorney Patrick Mulvaney of the Southern Center for Human Rights.
As part of Gates’ defense team, the center has been fighting since last year to make those notes public.
They come from a prosecutor at the center of another high-profile racial discrimination case. In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court found “a concerted effort to keep black prospective jurors off the jury” in a Georgia death penalty trial from 1986.
But WABE legal analyst Page Pate said proving racial prejudice legally, even with notes like these, is extremely difficult.
“All the prosecutor has to do is come up with a race-neutral reason. And it doesn’t have to be a good reason or a logical reason. It just has to be one that’s not based on race,” Pate said.
The prosecution notes from the Gates trial were released along with similar sets of notes from five other death penalty trials from the ’70s. Whenever possible, they all ended up with all-white juries.
Still, Pate says he’s not sure this evidence alone will be enough to win a new trial for Gates. But he says it does draw attention to a potential antidote to the outsized role race can play in jury selection.
“Get more diverse prosecutors and judges.”
Gates’ next hearing is set for early May.
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