When the judge looked, she found no reason to keep the man off the jury

04:20 PM CST on Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Jury duty sounded like fun to the 22-year-old Dallas man.

RICHARD MICHAEL PRUITT/DMN

A prosecutor said she wanted this man removed because he was missing his front teeth. The judge denied the strike, and the prosecutor later said she had mistaken the juror for an older black man in front of him.

"I thought it would be pretty cool," he said. "It would be something new. I'd never done it before."

After arriving at the Frank Crowley Courts Building, the boyish young man with a shy manner was told to report to state District Judge Faith Johnson's court. The case involved two black men who were charged with robbing an elderly Hispanic man.

J, who asked that his identity not be revealed, was one of 20 blacks on the panel of 65 prospective jurors. In answer to a group question, he said he believed the primary purpose of sentencing should be punishment. He said he was never asked a direct question.

But when Assistant District Attorney Kerri New presented her list of potential jurors whom she wanted to strike, J's name was on it. So were the names of eight other blacks.

Defense attorney Clark Birdsall accused Ms. New of striking blacks for racial reasons, without asking some of them a single question, and requested a Batson hearing.

"Some of these jurors, I don't think, said a cotton-picking thing," he said.

In response, Ms. New said four people had doubts about assessing a life sentence. Another was "a bad juror on a murder case." One had a misdemeanor conviction. One sported a "liberal lifestyle." One had a "disturbing" attitude.

She said she struck J because he was missing his front teeth, which she called an indication of a "socioeconomic stereotype" unfavorable to the state.

"Judge, it may not be popular," Ms. New said, "but it's the truth. We have a lot of problems with people who come down here and want to view the police as bad people because of where they live. That is allowed. It is a race-neutral reason."

Mr. Birdsall was outraged. "I can't believe my ears," he said. He likened Ms. New's rationale to "knitting a parachute out of thin air."

Judge Johnson had J brought back into the courtroom and called him to her bench. She said she noticed he had some college credits. He said he was the manager of a small family business. Then she asked whether his front teeth were missing.

"Missing?" he replied. "No. I got my tongue pierced."

"But your teeth are not missing?" the judge persisted.

"They're all there. Thank you," J replied.

"Open your mouth; let me see," the judge instructed.

The judge had seen enough. The state's strike was denied, and J was seated on the jury. Later, he voted with the 11 other jurors to convict the two defendants. He said some jurors at first had doubted their guilt, but he never did.

In an interview with The Dallas Morning News, J said he thought the request to see his teeth was "weird," but it didn't bother him. When he was told Ms. New's reasons for striking him, he suggested that maybe she had seen that his teeth were crooked and had gotten confused.

"Maybe it was just something she assumed," he said. "I do live in Oak Cliff. But I'm not poor or anything."

Ms. New, who had once helped train young Dallas County prosecutors, told Judge Johnson she had confused J with an older black man seated in front of him. She apologized and insisted she would never strike someone because of race.

In a later interview, Ms. New repeated that it was a case of mistaken identity.

"He had no regard for himself," she said of the older man. "If that person had walked in any courtroom in that state – white or black – any prosecutor would have struck him."

In early May, after several inquiries by the newspaper, Ms. New was demoted and quit the district attorney's office.