African -American Death Row Inmate Suffer Race Bias : Top US Court

Washington: The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favour of an African American death row inmate who argued there was bias in the choosing of an all-white jury that convicted him of the 1986 murder of an elderly white woman.

By a 7-1 vote, the justices struck down a Georgia Supreme Court ruling denying Timothy Foster appellate review of his death sentence. Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, the court's only African American member, dissented.

"This means that Timothy Foster is entitled to a new trial at which jurors are not excluded based on race," his lawyers said in a statement.

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The decision, coming nearly 30 years after Foster's death penalty conviction, highlighted the continuing effect of racism on jury selection in the United States.

Foster's lawyers showed that prosecutors had maneuvered to keep blacks off the jury, presenting as evidence prosecutor's notes at a November 2015 Supreme Court hearing.