Miller-El v. Dretke
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| Miller-El v. Dretke | ||||||||||
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| Argued December 6, 2004 Decided June 13, 2005 |
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| Holding | ||||||||||
| The prosecution in the capital trial of Miller-El violated the Fourteenth Amendment as interpreted in Batson v. Kentucky when it racially discriminated against black potential jurors, and Miller-El is entitled to habeas corpus relief. | ||||||||||
| Court membership | ||||||||||
| Chief Justice: William Rehnquist Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer |
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| Case opinions | ||||||||||
| Majority by: Souter Joined by: Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer Concurrence by: Breyer Dissent by: Thomas Joined by: Rehnquist, Scalia |
Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U.S. 231 (2005), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that clarified the constitutional limitations on the use of peremptory challenges by prosecutors.
Thomas Miller-El was charged with capital murder committed in the course of a robbery. After voir dire, Miller-El moved to strike the entire jury because the prosecution had used its peremptory challenges to strike ten of the eleven African-Americans who were eligible to serve on the jury. This motion was denied, and Miller-El was subsequently found guilty and sentenced to death.
In 1986, the US Supreme Court ruled in Batson v. Kentucky that a prosecutor's use of peremptory challenges may not be used to exclude jurors on the basis of race. Miller-El appealed based on the Batson criteria and asked that his conviction be overturned.
In June 2005, the US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to overturn Miller-El's death sentence, finding his jury selection process had been tainted by racial bias.
