The Supreme Court says it will decide whether white defendants charged by a grand jury can challenge the exclusion of blacks from serving as foremen.
Getting a head start on its 1997-98 term, the court said Monday it will hear arguments by a convicted Louisiana murderer who, although he is white, says the charge against him was tainted by bias against blacks.The high court's new term officially begins next Monday, but the justices decided to announce a week early that they were granting review to a handful of cases.
In other cases, the court:
- Said it will use a Nebraska case to clarify when jurors in capital cases must be allowed to consider convicting someone of a lesser crime that does not carry a death sentence.
- Agreed to decide in an $8.8 million copyright-infringement against television stations in Florida and Alabama whether parties in such cases always have a right to a trial by jury.
- Voted to referee a dispute between Texas and the federal government over the need for federal approval of some changes in the way the state's commissioner of education imposes sanctions.
- Agreed to decide in a dispute from York, Pa., between Caterpillar Inc. and the United Auto Workers union whether federal labor law allows companies to grant paid leaves of absence to employees chosen to work full time for their union.
- Said it will hear arguments in a dispute between New York and New Jersey over bragging rights to Ellis Island, once the nation's gateway for millions of immigrants. A fact-finder has recommended dividing the island in New York Harbor between the two states.
In the Louisiana case, Terry Campbell was convicted of fatally shooting James L. Sharp on Jan. 11, 1992, after Sharp accompanied Campbell's estranged wife to her home after an evening out.
Campbell was tried in Evangeline Parish, convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Campbell had objected to the grand jury indictment on grounds that blacks in the parish systematically were excluded from serving as grand jury foremen. From January 1976 through August 1993, all 35 people who served as grand jury foreman in Evangeline Parish were white.