Fourth Circuit: William Dickerson Batson Challenge Argued

• William Dickerson, a South Carolina death row inmate, is appealing to the Fourth Circuit, claiming prosecutors racially discriminated in jury selection at his 2009 murder trial.
• Postconviction discovery revealed Charleston County Solicitor Scarlett Wilson struck 40% of Black jurors compared to 7% of white jurors in 20 trials over a decade.
• Lower courts, including a South Carolina postconviction judge, the state Supreme Court, and a U.S. District Judge, procedurally barred Dickerson's Batson challenge because it was not raised at trial.
• Dickerson's defense argues the evidence of juror discrimination was unavailable until postconviction relief due to South Carolina law restricting access to prosecutor's juror information.
• The Fourth Circuit hearing involved a debate on whether a Batson violation constitutes a 'structural error' that should override procedural bars, with Judge Toby Heytens questioning the lower courts' rationale.

His defense team is now seeking a certificate of appealability and a remand for a merits and discovery review, contending that lower courts arbitrarily refused to consider significant evidence of juror discrimination.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently heard arguments in the case of William Dickerson, a death row inmate from South Carolina, who alleges that prosecutors systematically excluded Black jurors from his 2009 murder trial. Dickerson, who is Black, was convicted of kidnapping Gerald Roper and subjecting him to over 30 hours of torture near Charleston, South Carolina. According to court briefs, Dickerson believed Roper was involved with his girlfriend at the time, and he was smoking marijuana and cocaine-laced cigarettes during the incident. His defense team is now seeking a certificate of appealability and a remand for a merits and discovery review, contending that lower courts arbitrarily refused to consider significant evidence of juror discrimination.

This appeal centers on a critical procedural question: whether newly discovered evidence of racial bias in jury selection, uncovered during postconviction relief proceedings, can overcome a procedural bar when it was not raised at the original trial or on direct appeal. The William Dickerson Batson challenge 4th Circuit hearing highlighted the tension between the need to address juror discrimination and established legal procedures. Dickerson's attorneys argue that the evidence supporting their Batson challenge was simply not available to them at earlier stages of the legal process, making the lower courts' refusal to hear the claim fundamentally unfair.

During the postconviction relief phase, Dickerson's legal team was granted discovery, which they assert led to the uncovering of extensive evidence of systematic discrimination by Charleston County Solicitor Scarlett Wilson. This evidence forms the core of the Dickerson juror discrimination appeal. An analysis of 20 trials prosecuted by Wilson over a decade revealed a striking pattern: she struck 40% of Black prospective jurors compared to only 7% of white prospective jurors. This statistical disparity points to a potential pattern of racial bias in jury selection.

Further bolstering the claim of a Scarlett Wilson prosecutor Batson violation, defense attorneys noted that a trial judge had previously accused Wilson of violating Batson in a separate case. Additionally, Wilson had access to training materials from the state's Commission on Prosecution Coordination that controversially suggested race "may be one consideration" when striking a juror. These pieces of evidence, collectively, paint a picture of potential systemic issues within the prosecutor's office regarding jury selection practices.

Despite the compelling nature of the newly discovered evidence, a postconviction relief judge in South Carolina refused to hear the Batson challenge, ruling that Dickerson should have raised the issue during his initial appeal. This decision established a procedural bar that has since been upheld through multiple levels of the judiciary. The South Carolina Supreme Court similarly denied Dickerson’s appeal in a 3-2 decision, and U.S. District Judge Sherri Lydon, a Donald Trump appointee, also declined to hear the Batson challenge, again citing the procedural bar.

Defense attorneys contend that this application of the procedural bar is arbitrary and unjust, particularly given the circumstances surrounding the evidence's discovery. They argue that under South Carolina law, defendants are typically not entitled to access juror information collected by prosecutors until the postconviction relief stage. Federal public defender David Weiss, representing Dickerson, emphasized at the Fourth Circuit hearing that the crucial evidence to establish the Batson challenge was simply unavailable until postconviction, stating, "This was not a winnable claim at the trial stage." The South Carolina postconviction Batson claim thus hinges on whether the procedural bar can be overcome when evidence of discrimination was genuinely undiscoverable earlier.

During the Fourth Circuit hearing, the debate intensified over the nature of Batson violations and their implications for postconviction relief. U.S. Circuit Judge Toby Heytens, a Joe Biden appointee, expressed skepticism about the lower courts' rulings, noting that the postconviction relief judge did not appear to determine whether the jury evidence could have been discovered sooner before barring the claim outright. Heytens remarked that this approach struck him as "obviously wrong" and posed a hypothetical: if unimpeachable witnesses came forward post-appeal with affidavits proving a prosecutor struck a juror due to race, would that claim also be barred?

Senior Assistant Deputy Attorney General Melody Brown argued that such a claim would indeed be barred, asserting that a Batson claim does not constitute a structural error reversible in postconviction relief. This stance directly contradicts the defense's position, leading to a significant Batson structural error debate. Weiss countered forcefully, stating that Batson *is* a structural error, implying that such a fundamental flaw in the trial process should always be reviewable, regardless of when the evidence emerges. The Fourth Circuit juror striking arguments thus center on whether the procedural bar can stand against newly revealed evidence of racial bias, especially when the evidence was previously inaccessible to the defense.

Defense attorneys should closely monitor this Fourth Circuit appeal regarding the procedural bar for Batson challenges in postconviction relief. A favorable ruling for Dickerson could establish a precedent allowing newly discovered evidence of systemic juror discrimination to be heard, even if not raised at trial, potentially expanding avenues for challenging convictions based on racial bias in jury selection.

Source: Original reporting via CN