Supreme Court declines Alabama case involving jury selection

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court won’t take up a death penalty case from Alabama in which attorneys said African-American jurors were improperly excluded from the jury.

The justices said Monday they would not take the case of Christopher Floyd. Floyd’s attorneys have said that the prosecutor in the case marked potential African-American jurors with a “B” to indicate their race on the jury list and could not give a reason for excluding at least one of the African-Americans he’d objected to from the jury.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a brief statement agreeing with the decision not to take up the case. She said the manner in which the jury was selected “raises serious concerns.” But she said the “unusual posture” in which the claims were raised made it unsuitable for review.