SCOTUS Throws Out Death Sentence in Jury Bias Case

long legal saga that hasn't ended yet. Today, the Supreme Court throughout the death sentence of a Mississippi man convicted at his sixth trial for a quadruple murder after the prosecutor repeatedly excluded black people from the jury, but he can be tried again for a seventh time. Joining me is Bloomberg New Supreme Court reporter Greg stop So. Greg this involved what's called peremptory challenges to a jury, so lawyers can strike jurors without stating a reason explain what

happened here. So what happened here is that the man, Curtis Flowers, was try six different times for the same uh crimes the murders from and prosecutors in those six trials actually the same prosecutor, District Attorney Doug Evans, used peremptory challenges to strike forty one out of forty two prospective black jurors from those UH jury panels, and the Supreme Court looked at this case and said, you know, if you look at the history of it, um, it's

clear that that he has used race intentionally, and so we're going to throw out his latest conviction. Now, the the in the dissent were Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorcich. And this was a case where Justice Thomas actually asked a question. He did. Yes, this was Justice Thomas almost never asked questions. In this one. At the very end of the argument, he asked whether he asked Mr Flowers's attorney whether his lawyer at trial had exercised perempty peremptory

challenges as well to strike white jerors from the panel. Now, the Supreme Court has has said that the problem, uh is not that defendants are using peremptory challenges in a discriminatory manner. The thing we're worried about here is prosecutors doing that, because that would mean a criminal defendant may not be getting a fair trial. UM. This came up

in his Justice Thomas's descent UH to a small degree um. Uh. He is a very strongly worded descent um, in which he ended by saying that, Um, the Court's opinion might boost it self esteem, but it needlessly prolongs the suffering of the four victims families. He said, the only redeeming quality of the opinion was that Mississippi can prosecute flowers again, which it can, and UH, we'll wait to find out

whether or not it will do so now. In another case, in a five to four decision along ideological lines, the Court overturned to more than thirty year old precedent and made it easier for landowners to sue for compensation when a government regulation reduces the value of their property. What happened here, So this has to do with the Constitution's taking clause, which says that, UM, the government can't take

your property without giving you just compensation. Um. And the Supreme Court in the past had said, UM, if you're trying to vindicate your rights under that, you first have to deal with the state court system. And sometimes a property owner thinks that he or she doesn't get as good as a shake in the state court system. Uh. This was the case involving a woman who owns some

rural property in Pennsylvania. There's a local ordinance that UM and her property apparently has a very old cemetery on it, and there's a local ordinance that now says that she has to provide open access to that for people who want to visit the cemetery. And the question for the court was, did she have to go through the state court system to attempt to get compensation for what you said is a decrease in the value of her property?

Or can't she go straight to the federal court? In the Supreme Court throwing out a precedent, said she can go straight to federal court. Now. Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a sharply worded dissent for the UH for justices that the decision smashes a hundred years Excuse me, the decision smashes a hundred plus years of legal rulings to smithereens Why were the liberal justices lined up in the minority in this case? Well, so, there are several things

going on here. Uh. First, these claims, these takings claims and seeking just compensation are are a type that conservatives have traditionally been more sympathetic towards UM. But the the liberals on the court Supreme Court these days are clearly quite worried about where things are headed. The Court UH several weeks ago overturned the precedent involving sovereign immunity. That was the one that left Justice Stephen Bryer Um saying today's decision can only cause one to wonder which cases

the Court will overrule next. And Justice Kagan, in her descent today um invoked that statement and said, well, that didn't take long. Now one may wonder yet again. So the liberals are worried that the conservative block on the Court is going to move very quickly ahead to overturn precedents, potentially even getting into the precedents involving abortion. And yet during Supreme Court confirmation hearing is the one refrain that you always hear, is I am going to respect to precedent.

It was. It was something that that Brett Kavanaugh talked an awful lot about. There is one more case that the Course gonna be deciding next week involving an important precedent. Um So far, just as Kavan haven't written anything separately to to really spell out his views about what he thinks about precedent in a Supreme Court opinion, and maybe

we'll get it then one more week as you say. Now, also the court decided to hear a case that could upend the work of the oversight board that's tasks with pulling Puerto Rico out of its bankruptcy. Yes, this is something that happened yesterday. UM. This is a case where actually both sides wine the court to take it and decided fairly quickly. Uh. So the court is going to

hear it in in October. What this is about, this is the board that is basically, UM doing all the work of of of trying to manage the bankruptcy proceedings in Puerto Rico, UH get the island back on sound

financial footing. And the members of the board were appointed under provisions in a statute Congress passed a couple of years ago where UH President Obama picked the members for this board off a list submitted by lawmakers and bond holders who UH don't like what the board is doing, think they're not getting a big enough uh return on on the bonds that they hold. Sued to challenge the way the members were appointed. They said it violates the

Constitution's Appointments clauset. In particular, they they say the Senate has to confirm these people. Um, a lower court said, yes, indeed, this does violate the appointments clause, but we're not going to invalidate all the stuff that the Board has done

in the past. So now both sides are appealing that that the the Board and the Trump administration are asking the court to reinstate to say that the members were properly appointed, and the bond holders are asking the Supreme Court to say that we need to wipe out at least some of the decisions the Board has made in the past. All right, thanks so much, Greg, rest up this weekend because next week we have twelve cases, including the census question and part is in gerrymandering. Thanks for

listening to the Bloomberg Law podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg