OAKLAND, CA DA KEEPS JEWS OFF DEATH PENALTY JURIES

Case Stirs Fight on Jews, Juries and Execution By DEAN E. MURPHY (NYT)

OAKLAND, Calif., March 15 - The convictions of dozens of death-row inmates in California are coming under legal scrutiny because of accusations that Jews and black women were excluded from juries in capital trials in Alameda County as "standard practice."

A former Alameda prosecutor, John R. Quatman, made the contentions in a sworn declaration in the habeas corpus case of Fred H. Freeman. Mr. Freeman is a condemned inmate who is seeking to overturn his conviction in 1987 in a killing and robbery at a bar in Berkeley.

Mr. Quatman, who worked for 26 years as a deputy district attorney and prosecuted the case, said the trial judge, Stanley Golde, advised him during jury selection that "no Jew would vote to send a defendant to the gas chamber."

"Judge Golde was only telling me what I already should have known to do," Mr. Quatman's statement said. "It was standard practice to exclude Jewish jurors in death cases."