Court says L.A. prosecutor did not discriminate in jury selection

Reporting from San Francisco —  The California Supreme Court upheld the death sentence Monday of a man who shot and killed a liquor store clerk in 1997 in Compton.

In a 6-1 ruling, the state high court rejected claims by Calvin Dion Chism that a Los Angeles prosecutor improperly excluded two black prospective jurors because of their race. Chism is black, and the murder victim, Richard Moon, was white.

The jury in Chism’s first penalty phase trial hung 10 to 2 for the death penalty. The two holdouts were black women.

In selecting a second jury to determine whether Chism should get the death penalty, the prosecutor struck a black man, saying his experience did not suggest strong decision-making skills, and a black woman on the grounds she had never worked as a supervisor or made a difficult decision in a high-stress situation.

A black former corrections officer was permitted to serve on the jury, and another African American was selected as an alternate juror.

Justice Ming W. Chin, who wrote Monday’s ruling, said substantial evidence supported the trial judge’s decision that the two strikes were not motivated by race.

Justice Goodwin Liu, writing separately, said he agreed the conviction should be upheld but would overturn the death sentence.

“Today’s opinion marks the second time in 12 months that this court has rejected a claim of improper discrimination in jury selection despite indications in the record that the strike of a black female juror was substantially motivated by discriminatory intent,” Liu wrote.

He argued that the prosecutor had not struck white jurors who lacked supervisorial experience.