Death row inmate says juror discrimination tainted murder case

William Dickerson, convicted in 2009 of kidnapping and torturing Gerald Roper for over 30 hours, told the Fourth Circuit that Charleston County prosecutors intentionally excluded Black jurors at his trial. His attorneys say discovery obtained during postconviction relief uncovered that Solicitor Scarlett Wilson struck 40% of Black jurors versus 7% of white jurors across 20 trials over a decade, along with training materials suggesting race could factor into strikes.

Lower courts, including a postconviction judge and the South Carolina Supreme Court in a 3-2 decision, refused to hear the Batson challenge on procedural grounds, ruling Dickerson should have raised it earlier, before the evidence was available. A federal district judge likewise declined to hear the claim.

At Wednesday's hearing, Judge Toby Heytens appeared sympathetic to the argument that the procedural bar was applied without first determining whether the evidence could have been found sooner, while the state argued Batson claims aren't the kind of structural error that reopens postconviction review.

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