The conservative-skewed Supreme Court affirmed the death penalty for a convicted murderer on Monday, despite ample evidence suggesting overt racial bias on the part of a member of his original jury.
Kristopher Love, who is Black, was condemned to death row in 2018, after he was convicted in a murder for hire case in Dallas, Texas. However, Love and his legal team have argued that his conviction was tainted by juror Zachary Niesman, who is white, and who claimed during the preliminary jury screening process that “statistics show more violent crimes are committed by certain races,” a belief he said he held based on “news reports and criminology classes” he’d taken. He later clarified that he explicitly meant “non-white” races tended to be more violent than white people. Niesman was nevertheless included as a juror, despite protestations from Love’s attorneys.
