A Black death row inmate convicted of killing his White wife failed to convince the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Friday to grant habeas relief after he alleged his conviction by an all-White jury was improper because some jurors expressed opposition to interracial marriage.
Andre Lee Thomas was indicted in June 2004 and, while awaiting trial, he removed one of his own eyes. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but the state challenged that assertion. Thomas was ultimately found guilty and sentenced to death by a jury that included people who acknowledged they don’t support interracial marriages.
In a split decision, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the challenged aspects of that ruling, noting that it was not "objectively unreasonable" to seat the three jurors who admitted having varying degrees of bias against interracial marriage. The dissent emphasized that empaneling the three jurors was “objectively unreasonable” and contradicted clearly established U.S. Supreme Court and circuit precedent.
Racial animus was “condemned by the unanimous Supreme Court one half century ago in Loving v. Virginia as ‘odious,’ ‘invidious,’ and ‘repugnant’,” the dissent said. “I would apply clearly established Supreme Court law to forbid persons from being privileged to participate in the judicial process to make life or death judgment about brutal murders involving interracial marriage and offspring those jurors openly confirm they have racial bias against. The law rightly condemned this repugnancy when enacted as law by lawmakers, just as it must condemn it when we ask citizens to join us as judges,” it wrote.
The case is Thomas v. Lumpkin, No. 17-70002 (5th Cir. Apr 23, 2021).