The only surprising thing about this case is that the court actually overturned the poor man's conviction, after a white prosecutor put him through 6 (count'em, 6!) trials in which he did everything possible to keep African-Americans off the juries.

The most dismaying thing is Clarence Thomas' dissent.

'Thomas went so far as calling for the court to junk its 1986 decision in Batson v. Kentucky, which says potential jurors cannot be excluded because of their race, and lawyers must provide a nondiscriminatory explanation for striking them.

Thomas, who broke three years of silence on the bench to ask a question during oral arguments in the case about Flowers’s lawyers striking white potential jurors, said the court’s decision was “manifestly incorrect.”

“Today’s decision distorts the record of this case, eviscerates our standard of review, and vacates four murder convictions because the state struck a juror who would have been stricken by any competent attorney,” he wrote.

He added: “If the court’s opinion today has a redeeming quality, it is this: The state is perfectly free to convict Curtis Flowers again.”'

Once again, just when I think Clarence Thomas and his convoluted prejudice against all people of color (except for himself) can't sicken me any more, he tops himself.