A Batson Rejection

The North Carolina Supreme Court declined to review a Black man’s claims of jury discrimination, even though the prosecutor admitted at a 2023 hearing that he considered race in dismissing Black potential jurors. 

All five Republican justices agreed to deny Frank Chambers’ petition; Democratic justices Allison Riggs and Anita Earls dissented. 

Chambers, 64, is on death row. In 1994, a jury convicted him and two other Black men of the murder of a white elderly couple in Rowan County. Chambers claimed racism affected every aspect of his case, including jury selection. 

At the trial, Chambers’ attorneys challenged prosecutors’ dismissal of Black people from the jury pool based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1986 ruling in Batson v. Kentucky, which concluded that prosecutors could not dismiss potential jurors based on race. 

It was not until years after Chambers’ conviction that his lawyers found evidence that prosecutors had illegally used race in jury selection. His attorney Gretchen Engel wrote in her petition to the state Supreme Court that prosecution notes identified potential Black jurors by race and gender, noted whether they opposed the death penalty, mentioned their hairstyles, and in one case, gave false information about alleged criminal activity at a historically Black university where the potential juror worked. 

Two Black people were dismissed from the pool because they didn’t know anything about the case, according to the petition, but they retained four white jurors who also said they didn’t know anything about the case. 

But the most significant evidence came from one of the prosecutors involved in the case: Bill Kenerly, who was Rowan County’s elected district attorney at the time. Kennerly testified during a week-long evidentiary hearing in May 2023, admitting that he did consider race in jury selection. He said he asked one Black woman whether she would face criticism from her friends if she recommended the death penalty.

Ultimately, Superior Court Judge Richard Doughton denied Chambers’ claims, prompting an appeal to the state Supreme Court. Engel said she considered Chambers’ case to be a slam dunk, considering both the prosecution notes and Kenerly’s admissions. 

But that wasn’t enough to warrant review from the state’s highest court. Last week’s decision raises more questions about whether state appellate courts will consider the merits of Batson claims going forward. 

State appellate courts have rarely overturned a criminal case based on Batson claims. The court first overturned a conviction based on a Batson claim in 2022, under a Democratic majority. 

But under the current 5-2 Republican majority, the court also denied a new trial in State v. Russell William Tucker in 2023. 

Engels said she plans to file a federal petition for habeas corpus. 

“It really feels like if you can’t win on this case, then who can ever win on Batson in North Carolina?” she said. 

Michael Hewlett is a staff reporter at The Assembly. He was previously the legal affairs reporter at the Winston-Salem Journal. You can reach him at michael@theassemblync.com.