Case Stirs Fight on Jews, Juries and Execution -NYT

The convictions of dozens of death-row inmates in California are coming under legal scrutiny because of accusations that Jews and black women were excluded from juries in capital trials in Alameda County as "standard practice."
A former Alameda prosecutor, John R. Quatman, made the contentions in a sworn declaration in the habeas corpus case of Fred H. Freeman. Mr. Freeman is a condemned inmate who is seeking to overturn his conviction in 1987 in a killing and robbery at a bar in Berkeley.

Mr. Quatman, who worked for 26 years as a deputy district attorney and prosecuted the case, said the trial judge, Stanley Golde, advised him during jury selection that "no Jew would vote to send a defendant to the gas chamber."
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The United States Supreme Court has ruled that it is illegal to reject jurors on the basis of race, and the California Supreme Court in 1978 extended that prohibition to religion. While habeas corpus petitions typically challenge trial procedures, it is highly unusual for the prosecutor in a case to support the petition. A hearing on Mr. Quatman's accusation, which State Supreme Court ordered in July, is scheduled for Tuesday in Superior Court in San Jose.

If Mr. Freeman's lawyers succeed, he would get a new trial. But the repercussions are possibly much broader. Forty-four people from Alameda County are on death row, and Judge Golde, who died in 1998 after 25 years on the bench, presided over more death penalty cases in the county than any other judge. At least eight inmates now on death row had trials conducted by Judge Golde.

http://nytimes.com/2005/03/16/national/16juries.html