Supreme Court: No new trial in Texas police officer death
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Monday reversed a lower court decision that gave a new trial to a man convicted of killing a police officer in Texas...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday reversed a lower court decision that gave a new trial to a man convicted of killing a police officer in Texas.
The high court ordered the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision that Anthony Cardell Haynes should get a new trial or be released from death row. The New Orleans-based federal appeals court had ordered Haynes retried or released because a prospective juror was improperly excluded from his trial because of race.
Haynes was convicted for the 1998 fatal shooting of police Sgt. Kent Kincaid. The high court said the 5th Circuit misinterpreted Supreme Court rulings in its decision to order a new trial.
Haynes, who is black, contended state District Court Judge Jim Wallace improperly allowed Harris County prosecutors to exclude two black people from consideration as jurors.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 1986 found it unconstitutional to dismiss a juror because of race.
Prosecutors contended the jurors were stricken because of their demeanor, but the appeals court said Wallace, who upheld the juror removals, wasn’t even present during the individual questioning of jurors.
A second judge was presiding during the individual questioning. Wallace was on the bench while the jury pool was questioned as a group. There was no explanation for Wallace’s absence during the individual questioning.
But the high court said none of its rulings say “a demeanor-based explanation for a peremptory challenge must be rejected unless the judge personally observed and recalls the relevant aspect of the prospective juror’s demeanor.”
Kincaid was killed after he followed a passing truck that had fired a bullet into the windshield of his car. When the 40-year-old officer pulled up alongside the truck and identified himself as an officer, he was shot in the head. Kincaid, a 13-year officer, was not armed at the time of the shooting.
Haynes was arrested two days later.
The case is Quarterman v. Haynes, 09-273.
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