Defense appeal cites discovered memo saying 'avoid blacks on this jury'
Steve Berry/Wikimedia Commons
A Georgia appellate lawyer is arguing that a murder verdict should be overturned after finding a note in the district attorney’s case file advising: “Personally, I would avoid blacks on this jury.”
Lawyer Stephen Reba concluded the suggestion in the note came from Steve Berry, a lawyer who at the time of Dr. Noel Chua’s trial was an elected official in Camden County, Georgia, according to the Daily Report. Berry is now an award-winning author of historical thrillers.
The memo also described a jury pool member as “looney tunes,” and mentioned a member’s sexual orientation. “He’s gay. Just so you’ll know, since that could become an issue here,” according to the Daily Report.
Berry and his lawyer did not respond to multiple interview requests, according to the Daily Report.
Chua, who practiced in coastal Georgia, was charged in 2006 for felony murder and illegally providing prescriptions outside the scope of his medical practice after Jamie Carter, Chua’s housemate and intern, was found dead in Chua’s home of a prescription drug overdose. The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed Chua’s conviction in 2011.
“My initial thought was, ‘This is incredible.’ What must have actually been going on in this case if they had so casually kept this [memo] and thrown it back into the DA’s file?” said Reba, an attorney trying to win a new trial for Chua, told the Daily Report.
Under Batson v. Kentucky, a 1986 U.S. Supreme Court opinion, peremptory challenges to keep people off juries because of their race violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.
Reba filed a public records suit against the Camden County district attorney’s office and successfully appealed a lower court ruling that backed the agency’s exemption argument, according to the Daily Report.
A habeas petition hearing for Chua took place Aug. 8, but Berry reportedly did not show despite receiving a subpoena to testify while at a book signing in Georgia in April.