Spencer v. Georgia

Background

James Lee Spencer is a Black man convicted and sentenced to death by a jury of six white and six Black jurors after a prosecutor used nine peremptory challenges to exclude Black venirepersons. Spencer submitted an affidavit from a juror saying other jurors used racial slurs during deliberations and that race influenced some jurors’ decisions to convict and sentence him to death. The Georgia Supreme Court rejected Spencer’s claim under its reading of McCleskey v. Kemp and relied at least partly on a state rule that allows juror affidavits to support but not to attack a verdict. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to grant review of the case.

Reasoning

A majority voted to deny review, but Justice Kennedy wrote a concurring view explaining his reasons. He said he had initial reservations but ultimately concluded that federal habeas corpus proceedings should be able to consider Spencer’s equal-protection claim and that the Court’s prior decision in Teague v. Lane would not bar that review. Kennedy noted that state evidence rules do not directly bind federal habeas courts, which must decide whether Georgia’s juror-affidavit statute provides an adequate state-law ground to preclude federal consideration.

Real world impact

The decision leaves the state-court judgment in place for now while preserving the possibility that federal habeas courts will consider Spencer’s racial-bias and juror-affidavit claims. That means the death sentence remains, at least temporarily, but federal review may develop a fuller record on whether racial discrimination affected the trial. Because the Supreme Court did not reach the merits, the legal dispute is not finally resolved and could change in later federal proceedings.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Marshall dissented, saying he would have granted review and vacated the death sentence based on his view that the death penalty is always unconstitutional. Kennedy’s concurrence, by contrast, emphasized that habeas review offers the appropriate forum to address the equal-protection concerns he described.