Death Row Inmate Claims Racial Bias Tainted Jury Selection in SC Murder Trial

William Dickerson, convicted of torture and murder near Charleston, SC, argues prosecutors illegally excluded Black jurors. His case is now before the Fourth Circuit.

Death Row Inmate Alleges Prosecutors Systematically Struck Black Jurors in Charleston Murder Case

A South Carolina man on death row told the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday that prosecutors deliberately excluded Black jurors from his 2009 murder trial, according to Courthouse News Service.

William O. Dickerson, who is Black, was convicted of kidnapping Gerald Roper and subjecting him to more than 30 hours of torture at an apartment near Charleston, South Carolina. Dickerson, who at the time was smoking cigarettes laced with marijuana and cocaine, believed Roper had been sleeping with his girlfriend, court briefs state. He was sentenced to death.

His federal public defender, David Weiss, argued before the Fourth Circuit that Dickerson's case was tainted by the intentional exclusion of Black jurors — a violation known under the law as a Batson challenge — by Charleston County Solicitor Scarlett Wilson.

A decade of data, largely hidden until postconviction

Defense attorneys say they uncovered what they describe as "extensive evidence of systematic discrimination" only after obtaining court-ordered discovery during the postconviction relief stage. Under South Carolina law, defendants do not typically have access to juror information compiled by prosecutors during the trial phase itself.

The evidence they surfaced was substantial. An analysis of 20 trials prosecuted by Wilson over roughly a decade showed she struck 40% of Black jurors compared to just 7% of white jurors. A separate trial judge had already found Wilson violated Batson in another case, defense attorneys say. Wilson also had access to training materials from the state's Commission on Prosecution Coordination that stated race "may be one consideration" when striking a juror.

Despite this body of evidence, a postconviction relief judge refused to hear the Batson challenge, ruling that Dickerson should have raised the issue during his direct appeal. The South Carolina Supreme Court upheld that refusal in a 3-2 decision. At the federal level, U.S. District Judge Sherri Lydon, appointed by President Donald Trump, similarly declined to review the claim, finding it procedurally barred.

"This was not a winnable claim at the trial stage"

Weiss told the Fourth Circuit panel that the procedural rulings were both arbitrary and deeply unfair. The evidence needed to establish a Batson claim, he said, was simply not available to Dickerson until he reached the postconviction stage — the very proceeding through which discovery was made possible.

"In order to obtain that evidence, Mr. Dickerson had to get to postconviction," Weiss said. "This was not a winnable claim at the trial stage."

U.S. Circuit Judge Toby Heytens, a President Joe Biden appointee, appeared to side with Weiss. Heytens noted that the postconviction relief judge made no determination as to whether the jury evidence could have been discovered earlier — he simply blocked the claim without that analysis.

"That strikes me as obviously wrong," Heytens said.

Heytens posed a hypothetical to the state's attorney: if three credible witnesses filed affidavits after a defendant had exhausted all appeals, each stating they heard a prosecutor admit to striking a juror because of race, would that claim still be barred? Senior Assistant Deputy Attorney General Melody Brown answered yes, arguing that a Batson violation does not constitute the type of structural error that can be reversed at the postconviction stage.

Heytens pushed back, telling Brown: "Batson is a structural error. And you have a mountain of precedent against you if we're going to take on the question of whether Batson is a structural error or not."

Weiss asked the court to issue a certificate of appealability and remand the case for a merits review and discovery evaluation.

U.S. Circuit Judges Julius N. Richardson, a Trump appointee, and Nicole Berner, a Biden appointee, also sat on the three-judge panel. No ruling was issued from the bench.

Source: Courthouse News Service