Justices Overturn Verdict, Cite Race

"They're saying Batson has to be taken very seriously and the lower federal courts can't just defer to the conclusory findings of state courts," said David W. Ogden, a Washington lawyer who represented Miller-El at the Supreme Court.

In a written statement, Dallas County Criminal District Attorney Bill Hill said he still considers Miller-El guilty of shooting two bound hostages during a hotel robbery, killing one and leaving the other paralyzed. He said he had not decided how to proceed in the case. With evidence now 20 years old, retrial could prove difficult.

"This office does not and will not tolerate illegal discrimination by its prosecutors during jury selection, nor will it tolerate the same from opposing attorneys," Hill said.

Under Batson , a defendant may present initial evidence of racial bias, at which point the trial court asks the prosecution to explain its actions. If a state court upholds the prosecution's behavior, the defendant can overturn that ruling on appeal only by showing that no reasonable judge would have accepted the government's position.

In effect, then, yesterday's ruling said that previous state and federal judges who looked at the case had not evaluated the evidence reasonably.

In 2003, the Supreme Court issued an 8 to 1 opinion endorsing Miller-El's position and ordering the 5th Circuit, one of the most conservative federal appeals courts, to give him a hearing, which it had previously declined to do. After the hearing, the 5th Circuit ruled that prosecutors had valid nonracial reasons for their actions -- and Miller-El appealed once again to the Supreme Court.

As if to reinforce the Miller-El ruling, the court also overturned an attempt by the California Supreme Court to make it more difficult for defendants in that state to prove government bias in jury selection.

In 2003, the California Supreme Court said defendants cannot press a claim under Batson unless they can show it is "more likely than not" that race motivated a prosecution peremptory strike.

But the justices ruled 8 to 1 yesterday that this was too heavy a burden for defendants and that they need show only a "reasonable inference" of discrimination. Thomas dissented in the case, Johnson v. California , No. 04-6964.