Montgomery, AL – An advocacy group charges in a federal lawsuit that two Alabama counties exclude blacks from juries in serious criminal cases.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative charges Houston and Henry counties in southeast Alabama with using challenges to exclude blacks from some juries.
The lawsuit says blacks make up 29 percent of the population in Henry County and 23 percent in Houston County. The lawsuit says only 5 percent of the jurors in cases in the two counties where the death penalty was imposed from 2006 to 2010 were black. Equal Justice Initiative director Bryan Stevenson said excluding blacks from juries damages the criminal justice system.
Houston and Henry County District Attorney Doug Valeska could not immediately be reached for comment.
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