A man who has spent 25 years on Alabama’s death row is eligible to be retried for the 1988 murder of a deputy sheriff, a federal appeals court ruled this week, because prosecutors violated his constitutional rights by intentionally rejecting Black potential jurors.
In a decision issued on Monday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit found that prosecutors in Montgomery County, Ala., had violated Michael Sockwell’s 14th Amendment rights by systemically excluding Black jurors from his 1990 trial, fearing they would be sympathetic based on his race. Mr. Sockwell, now 62, is Black.
The court determined that prosecutors “repeatedly and purposefully struck Black jurors, making only dubious and capricious excuses.”
“Michael has been denied his right to a fair trial for 35 years,” Michael Rayfield, one of Mr. Sockwell’s lawyers, said in a statement. “We’ll continue to fight for his freedom.”
“Michael’s constitutional rights are being violated daily and that likely won’t end until he is released,” Christos Papapetrou, another lawyer for Mr. Sockwell, said in a separate statement.
The Alabama attorney general’s office and the Montgomery County district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
Mr. Sockwell was indicted by a grand jury in the March 10, 1988, killing of Isaiah Harris, a Montgomery County deputy sheriff, according to the appeals court ruling. Mr. Harris was shot in the head as he was driving to work in what prosecutors said was a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by his wife.
Prosecutors said that Mr. Harris’s wife was having an affair, and that she asked her lover to arrange the killing. He then drafted Mr. Sockwell and another man to carry it out, prosecutors said. Her motive, prosecutors said, was to hide the relationship and to collect on a life insurance policy.
There were no witnesses to the shooting.
Mr. Sockwell, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, went on trial in 1990.
During jury selection, 55 potential jurors were identified, including 14 Black people, according to court records. After the court dismissed 13 jurors for cause — based on their knowledge of the case or views on the death penalty — 42 jurors remained, 10 of whom were Black.
Both the prosecution and the defense had 15 peremptory challenges, allowing them to remove a juror without giving a reason. The county prosecutor used eight of her 15 challenges to remove Black jurors, and seven to remove white jurors, according to court documents.
Mr. Sockwell’s lawyers objected, arguing that prosecutors had used “over 50 percent of their strikes” to eliminate Black potential jurors, and that 80 percent of the Black members of the jury pool ultimately were excluded.
The county prosecutor defended her choices in court and during the appeals process, citing the excluded jurors’ views on the death penalty and exposure to pretrial publicity. The appeals court found these justifications inadequate.
The jury found Mr. Sockwell guilty of murder and voted 7 to 5 in favor of a sentence of life in prison. But the judge overrode the jury and sentenced Mr. Sockwell to death. Judges are no longer allowed to overrule juries in capital cases in Alabama.
The appellate panel ruled 2-1 on Monday that Mr. Sockwell was eligible for a new trial. Judge Robert J. Luck dissented, disagreeing with the other judges that the prosecutor had shown a pattern of racial discrimination in the case.
Judge Luck, who was nominated by President Trump during his first term, wrote that even after the county prosecutor “used her peremptory challenges, Black jurors still made up about 17 percent of the jury.”
Mark Walker is an investigative reporter for The Times focused on transportation. He is based in Washington.
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