Successful Batson Claim Leads to New Trial for Death Row Inmate

Following in the footsteps of Thomas Miller El, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday overturned the guilty verdict of death row inmate, Jonathan Bruce Reed.  In Reed v. Texas, the white defendant argued that the State of Texas violated his 6th Amendment rights under Batson v. Kentucky, when the State used its peremptory challenges to strike all five eligible black members of the venire.  As partial support for its ruling, the Appeals Court cited the "Jury Selection in a Criminal Case" manual also known as the "Sparling Manual" used by prosecutors in the Dallas County Prosecutor's Office at the time of Reed's 1983 trial. According to the Sparling Manual, prosecutors "are not looking for any member of a minority group...they almost always empathize with the accused."