9th Circuit To Release Rapist?

The Sacramento Bee reports that the looniest court in the land, the 9th Circuit, has overturned the conviction of a rapist. It’s not that anyone thinks that the man isn’t guilty of the rape and robbery of a 72 year old woman, it’s just that the court believes that there weren’t enough black jurors in his case:

Steven Frank Jackson was found guilty by a Superior Court jury of breaking into a 72-year-old white woman’s apartment and repeatedly raping her and sexually assaulting her in a number of ways.

Saliva found on her breast yielded a positive match of Jackson’s DNA, and the victim identified Jackson at the trial as her attacker in the early hours of April 29, 2002.

The jury pronounced him guilty of a multitude of sexual crimes and one count of burglary, and on Sept. 30, 2004, at age 39, Jackson was sentenced to a “three-strikes” prison term of 310 years to life. The verdict and sentence were affirmed by a state appellate court and the federal district court in Sacramento. The California Supreme Court declined review.

But both were overturned last week by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals…Absent a retrial, he will go free.

In a 2 1/2-page memorandum the three judges state that the reasons the prosecutor gave for his peremptory challenges excusing the two prospective African American jurors “were not sufficient to counter the evidence of purposeful discrimination.”

The 9th Circuit judges note with some indignation that “two out of three prospective African American jurors were stricken,” and then declare that “the record reflected different treatment of comparably situated jurors.”…

“The decision took us completely by surprise,” said Sacramento County Chief Deputy District Attorney Cindy Besemer. She said Deputy District Attorney Scott Triplett had “excused two jurors for reasons other than race. The 9th Circuit’s order doesn’t cite any evidence which conflicts with the findings made by (two) lower courts.”

So a rapist may go free because we need affirmative action on juries now? Do they not care at all that if this animal is set free other women will be raped? What is wrong with these people?

The District Attorney’s Office will appeal, of course and hopefully the case will land on the desk of someone sane. In the meantime, I think Charlton Heston said it best: