Whether the Supreme Court of South Carolina failed to apply the Batson factors in determining racial discrimination in jury selection when empaneling an all-white jury that convicted a Black defendant

QUESTION PRESENTED Richard Moote is the last person on death row in South Carolina who was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury. Moore is Black and the victim in his case was white. The State removed the only two otherwise qualified Black jurors through the exercise of its peremptory challenges. During individual voir dire, the State engaged in excessive and disparate questioning of the Black potential jurors when compated to how it approached white potential jurors. The State’s proffered reasons for removing the two Black jurors were not supported by the record or were not applied to similarly situated white jurors, revealing that the reasons were pretextual and the challenges violated the Equal Protection Clause. Despite the evidence of racial animus, the Supreme Court of South Carolina rejected Moore’s claim. Given the strength of the record, the question presented is: 1. Whether the Supreme Court of South Carolina failed to apply the factors outlined by this Court in Flowers v. Mississippi, 588 U.S. 284, 139 S. Ct. 2228 (2019), in determining whether the State had exercised its challenges in a racially discriminatory manner given that the totality of the circumstances demonstrates that the all-white jury that convicted Moore and sentenced him to death was empaneled in violation of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986). i