Supreme Court won't hear case of death-row inmate who claimed jurors were homophobic

Source: NBC News

Supreme Court won't hear case of death-row inmate who claimed jurors were homophobic

Defense lawyers said jurors knew that Charles Rhines was gay and thought "he shouldn't be able to spend his life with men in prison."

by Pete Williams / Jun.18.2018 / 9:43 AM ET

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up the appeal of a South Dakota man who claimed that anti-gay juror bias put him on death row.

"Charles Rhines is a gay man, and the jurors at his capital trial knew it," his lawyers said in urging the court to take up the case. But prosecutors said it was the brutal nature of the crime that led the jury to impose a death sentence, not his sexual orientation.

During trial deliberations, jurors sent a note to the judge asking whether a life sentence would allow Rhines to mix with the general inmate population, brag about his crime to young inmates, or have a cellmate. Defense lawyers said jurors contacted years later said they knew Rhines was gay and some thought "he shouldn't be able to spend his life with men in prison."

Comments by jurors during deliberations are normally off limits, and state and federal rules prohibit judges from hauling jurors back into court to explain their verdicts. But in 2017 the Supreme Court said exceptions must be made in cases where there's evidence that racial bias affected the verdict.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-won-t-hear-case-death-row-inmate-who-n884196

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Previously at DU:

Jurors thought a gay man would enjoy prison. They sent him to death row instead.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/113750649