Supreme Court Slaps 9th Circuit for ‘Inexplicable’ Decision in Batson Challenge

The U.S. Supreme Court has reversed the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a per curiam decision that hits the San Francisco appellate court for an “inexplicable” three-paragraph decision finding that a prosecutor wrongfully dismissed two blacks from the jury panel. The Supreme Court ruled (PDF) in Felkner v. Jackson, an appeal of a criminal conviction stemming from the defendant’s attack on a 72-year-old woman in his apartment building. The defendant, Steven Frank Jackson, had claimed the prosecutor improperly used his peremptory challenges to strike two black jurors from the panel, violating the bar on race-based dismissals established in Batson v. Kentucky. One of the dismissed black…